The birthrates in Japan got so bad they insert "marry and reproduce" message into a horror game adaptation

**_This film is based on the adventure game The Exit 8, where you play as a character trapped inside a looping subway corridor. Your only task is to walk forward and notice any strange or unsettling anomalies, if you overlook one or if one of them confronts you the loop resets and you are then back to square one or maybe 0 in that context._** I found the film to be really interesting, the whole project aims to adapt a video game into a movie, but the very foundation of the film still relies on the gameplay mechanic of the game, therefore the real challenge is to create a coherent adaptation that also manages to tell a more concrete story. One might mistakenly think that because the game and its core mechanic are fairly simple, adapting it shouldn’t be that difficult but that’s a bad assumption. This is a feature length film and even if the core mechanic is simple, it becomes necessary to expand it into a story which is capable of keeping us engaged all the way through. It’s worth noting that the movie is divided into three chapters, each focusing on a different character. This is a good idea because it allows the film to explore more while still keeping everything digestible. It creates natural pauses without breaking the overall intensity, and it simply works the movie has a nice rhythm and I didn’t feel the half hour pass. Watching it was genuinely pleasant. The film is far from perfect, and it’s hard not to notice how it sometimes adds a dramatic layer that feels artificial and sort of random from a writing standpoint. At times it feels a bit too much, more like filler than something original and interesting, these writing choices for the main character are really regrettable, the character could have been written much better. It’s all the more unfortunate because the film’s opening setup is actually well shot and quite intriguing. It is also unfortunate that the movie stays almost too faithful to the game in its horror aspect. There is plenty of room to do something truly wild with the core mechanic. Just because the protagonists return to square one when they make mistakes doesn’t mean they can’t suffer in more or less intense ways beforehand. Here, everything is rather restrained and basic and not very daring. The film leans more toward a mystery thriller than a horror movie even though it clearly borrows horror elements it ends up being a fairly faithful adaptation in the sense that it remains quite “soft” overall. I found the adaptation quite brilliant as a whole, and I was repeatedly surprised by how much I enjoyed the camera work, the sound design, and the overall acting which is very nice. There is the idea in the film that maybe we shouldn’t just go and enter a set path and that by doing so risking to sink deeper into it as if we were under some sort of hypnosis and being manipulated entirely cut off from everything around us following a basic pattern of life, a kind of endless and dizzying cycle, somewhat like Escher’s works, a cycle that suggests that life is reduced to our work and the subway hallways which although straight in most cases often take the form of labyrinths but instead the film seems to say that we should find the exit of all of this, the only way out, to return to something more essential and get closer to what really matters to us in the present moment such as our family, our loved ones, but also our dreams or at least what we really want to do, what is really important what has a real meaning. Despite the fact that I would have liked the film to take more risks and aim a little higher **Exit 8** succeeds at being a good adaptation that is meaningful and good. **7/10**

This sh1t Is boring, stupid, and weird, again the fuck1n6 elevated horror It Is a shame, you Will keed to understand the source material, read and watch a ton of videos to understand It, and play the video game, so then why a movie?

If you see an anomaly, turn back immediately The rules are simple the same as the rules of life. But do we listen? We keep going and going seeing all the anomalies and we never turn back. Exit 8 is not a horror in a conventional sense but it is nevertheless shocking. It doesn't tell a supernatural story it tells the story of our lives. The most shocking part is the introduction to the walking man. All along we see the walking man, wondering who he is or why he is there, and then suddenly one time during the repetitions the camera casually follows him and we realize that he is also a lost character or was! From this moment we realize the shocking truth. The fact that he was also once lost in exit 8 but lost to the game and even saw the anomaly (the open stairs to exit 8) he decided to go on. He didn't listen to the kid (who I will talk about later) he went on and then became an NPC—walking and walking in circles FOREVER. The way the story is told is also very intelligent. In the walking man narrative, we realize that there is also a walking girl, roaming around the exit 8. She was also once lost in the game and became also an NPC. So, from the moment we start the movie and get trapped with the young man inside the station and see the walking man until we go to chapter 2 “The Walking Man” we go forward in time then by the beginning of chapter 2 we go for a flashback that introduces how the walking man became an NPC, and another important factor that is The Kid. The kid is in the third chapter and we first see him on the path of the young guy, who thinks the kid is just an anomaly and loses progress. Then in the walking man progress, we realize that the kid was initially with the walking man and that the kid is super smart and tries to save the Walking Man and at the end even tries to save him from eternal perdition, but the man is so lost in the loop and so desperate that he rushes to his doom. Then we continue where we left off in the story of the young man. He realizes how smart the kid actually is and with his help, they go through several rounds and get closer to Exit 8. Here I will talk about one of the most brilliant scenes. In one of the loops, the anomaly becomes one of the doors being open. The man opens the adjured door looks into the darkness and sees himself on the train looking out the door (the movie begins with the exact shot but from the POV perspective). And we see him (the man inside the loop) with his eyes full of tears. It is as if even in the beginning when we saw the POV shot he was always looking not into his reflection in the darkness of the window but always to the trapped version. As if all along the trapped version was signalling him. Then with the boy, they go on solving the loops until the per ultimatum loop becomes too dramatic. We suddenly see the flood coming from outside and fills the station. The man decides to save the child. He puts him on the station sign and he himself gets drowned by the massive flood. Then there is this cutscene where we see him waking up on the beach. Sun shining, a shot from afar beautiful cinematography. Then we see his girlfriend standing by him and a boy playing on the sands. We cannot see the boy but we can guess that this boy and the abandoned boy from Exit 8 are the same person. If you remember the movie begins with his GF calling him saying she’s at the doctors deciding whether to keep the child or not. And he is hesitant. then in the limbo, the boy comes to him later, and it becomes clear in a monologue that the man was also abandoned as a child and never knew his father. Therefore, if we break this down we can understand that this loop has a literal sense for him. He was abandoned, he won't be involved in his GF's decision to keep the baby and the baby will grow without a father, and so on…. So, this boy is both his own son and himself from the past and from the future. Yeah I know, the review just got a bit technical. Pay attention read again and you’ll get it. And this boy is in fact his saviour. By saving him he is saving himself. And correctly we see that after he disappears in the flood first the boy and then he himself find their way out of Exit 8 and he finally exits the loop. But wait… The movie and its true horrors are not finished. He starts coming down the stairs, and we see all these people going to work all in the same formal clothes and it appears that they are going up, yes, exactly… to their own Exit 8 loop. The movie is sending a message that all of us, we are the NPCs in this world, going around and around the same loop. Then the boy calls his GF, saying that he will be there at the doctor and he gets on the train and guess what? It is the same scene with which the movie started. The movie started with a man yelling at a woman whose baby was crying and no one did anything including the main character. He just put the earphones on and looked at his reflection in the dark window - which by now we know was the anomaly all along…in that scene the man puts the earphones on, plays a music (Bolero by Ravel, not going to explain why that specific choice is significant, search and learn for yourself- and he doesn't do anything to defend the woman… So, it seems that everything is destined to happen over and over again and he had never actually escaped the loop when exactly at the last moment we see him turning around and moving for a brief moment it seems towards the woman to help her. Then the credits roll and we ask ourselves the question over and over in a loop: Did he actually escape the loop or was I hallucinating?

It’s clever as hell in how simple it is. No big scares, just mounting paranoia and that “one more loop” pull. But once you figure out the rhythm, the magic fades fast. Same sterile walls, same repetitive tension, and when it ends you’re left going “that’s it?” Solid concept, tight execution for what it is, but it doesn’t stick with you or give much reason to go back. Worth a play if you want something short and atmospheric to kill an evening, especially if you’re into mind bendy stuff. Just don’t expect a masterpiece.