Reviews
‘Exit 8’ Review – Liminal Looping Horror Has Endless Creativity But Minimal Plot
Video games’ capabilities of immersing players directly in their horror rarely translate evenly to film. Even more so when the video game in question can be played through in under an hour and favors experiential gameplay over storytelling. Exit 8, based on Kotake Create’s cult game, finds innovation in exploring the game’s structure, creating an immersive experience that has viewers scouring the screen for anomalies along with trapped characters. It’s also a bit too lean in plot.
An extended opening sequence in first-person perspective introduces a timid, asthmatic man (Kazunari Ninomiya) traveling on the subway. He keeps to himself, even as he witnesses a mother being berated by a man over her baby’s crying. As he leaves the train, he receives a call from his ex-girlfriend; she’s pregnant and unsure whether to keep it. Initially paralyzed by indecision, fear, and an asthma attack, the man agrees to meet her at the hospital. But when he attempts to exit the station, he instead finds himself trapped in a sterile backroom purgatory.
Like the game, the rules for the Lost Man are simple: scour the endlessly looping hallway for anomalies. If spotted, turn back immediately. If no anomalies, proceed. If the Lost Man can make eight successful loops, escape awaits.
Director Genki Kawamura gets inventive through simplicity. The brightly lit, pristine white tiled corridor is sparse in detail, ensuring both the Lost Man and the audience can keep track when it comes to spotting anomalies. It’s here where Exit 8 comes closest to capturing the essence of gaming, as much of the film’s fun comes from scouring for clues, picking up on subtle shifts in décor before the characters. In some instances, audiences can note the difference that onscreen characters miss entirely, instilling dread for the inevitable consequence of failure. And failure gets increasingly bizarre and cosmic.
It’s also here where Genki Kawamura adds complexity by toying with the narrative structure, weaving in nonlinear perspectives of the eerie grinning “walking man” (Yamato Kochi) and “the boy” (Kotone Hanase), touching on the prominent theme of guilt. It all ensures that Exit 8 is as unpredictable as it is meticulously crafted.
But the more the Lost Man attempts to find his way out of this twisted Möbius strip, the more the threadbare plotting begins to drag down the dizzying mind trap of horrors. The Lost Man’s arc is entirely driven by his indecision over whether to have the baby or abort, and once the boy fully enters the equation, it loses all nuance to the point of feeling more didactic in its pro-life messaging. That we never get a sense of who the Lost Man is beyond his panicked indecision and paralyzing fears means that the emotional stakes feel too low, to the point where the climax loses a lot of momentum.
Still, what Exit 8 lacks in storytelling, it makes up for in endless creativity. Kazunari Ninomiya capably navigates the physicality of his character’s cowardice and fear, without ever veering into unlikable territory. But the true magic of Exit 8 lies with its impressive ability to recreate the feeling of playing a game, as you find yourself scouring the walls, floors, and ceilings of a cosmic backroom hallway to assist the Lost Man in his search for anomalies. Even when the Lost Man’s story is easy to surmise in advance, there’s no predicting the aural and psychological terrors that await those trapped in Exit 8’s bizarre limbo.
Exit 8 screened at TIFF and releases in theaters on April 10, 2026.
Editor’s Note: This TIFF review was originally published on September 8, 2025.
Reviews
‘Her Private Hell’ Review: Nicolas Winding Refn Returns With a Hypnotic, Inscrutable Neon Fever Dream
Nicolas Winding Refn considers his first feature film in ten years, Her Private Hell, a resurrection. At the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, the filmmaker revealed that his return was inspired, in large part, by his own mortality. His need to create art kicked into overdrive after beating death in 2023, when his heart stopped for 25 minutes.
Her Private Hell is pure art, too, bearing the filmmaker’s neon and synth signatures, as well as a deep disinterest in scrutable storytelling. Much like The Neon Demon, Refn’s latest demands you bend to its wavelength: an expressionistic vision more interested in the artistic process than the narrative.
That’s not to say that Her Private Hell lacks plot; this sci-fi horror noir features two central overlapping plots. At the forefront is actress Elle (Sophie Thatcher), who lives in the penthouse suite overlooking a hazy neon metropolis with her father, Johnny Thunders (Dougray Scott), and young stepmom Dominique (Havana Rose Liu), who happens to be Elle’s former best friend before marriage got in the way.
To say that Elle has daddy issues would be an understatement, made worse by insecurities, the arrival of a new acting ingenue (Kristine Froseth), and a vicious killer prowling the city: the Leather Man.
The secondary plot follows the enigmatic Private K (Charles Melton), an American soldier in Japan with resolute vengeance on his mind. Whereas Elle’s world exists in a space of glamour and opulence, Private K pummels his way bare-knuckled through the sweaty backstreets ruled by local crime syndicates down below.
Refn, who co-writes with Esti Giordani, manages to corral a variety of seemingly disparate genres and influences into a clinically cold and cryptic whole. The filmmaker infuses his signature style with everything from ’60s sci-fi to Golden Age Hollywood melodrama to Japanese folklore, hung on the framework of a Dario Argento-style Giallo. There’s a prominent psychosexual edge to both Elle and Private K’s separate journeys, one that dials up to zany excess when it comes to the former character.
There’s an overarching sense of mystic mythmaking to Her Private Hell, with elusive seamstresses, played by Shioli Kutsuna and Aoi Yamada, dipping in and out like folkloric, omnipotent kitsune as they seemingly preside over the increasing chaos that entails brutal knife fights, Freudian melodrama, and a supernatural killer that brutally rips his victims apart. All of it told with Refn’s detached, sterile style.
It’s less a conventional movie and more a stream of consciousness, a collection of inspirations and personal thoughts and themes. Nothing is really explained in this nonsensical fairy tale fever dream. Thatcher gives herself fully to the spoiled Elle, whose affluent privilege makes her a bundle of raw, primal emotions that erodes her sense of identity and reality. It makes her the tonal and visual opposite of the elusive Private K., and much credit goes to Refn, Melton, and Thatcher for wringing compelling performances out of such nebulous, vague characters.
As with most of Refn’s work, you’re either on his frequency or not. Her Private Hell is wholly uninterested in explanation or convention. It’s also heavily disjointed and unhurried in its eclectic, sparse amalgamation of genre inspirations. Still, it’s tough not to fall sway to the magnetic allure of its exquisite, pulse-pounding sights and sounds, complete with an incredible score by legendary composer Pino Donaggio.
While it never fully pulls you into its tangled web of artistic musings, there’s a lot to admire in a technically stunning feature this fearless in its incomprehensibility and ambition.
Her Private Hell releases in theaters on July 24.
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