Exit 8, a live-action horror film adaptation of the anomaly-spotting indie sport of the similar identify, opened at film theaters in Japan on August 29. Regardless of having fun with a worthwhile opening weekend, the Japanese movie has attracted some controversy in its residence nation over a scene that depicts a tsunami, in addition to the manufacturing firm’s delay in issuing an official warning about this probably upsetting content material.
Initially launched on Steam in November 2023, The Exit 8 is a first-person puzzle sport set in looping passageways of a Japanese subway station. Beginning by the signal for Exit 0, gamers should attain the titular Exit 8 by searching for anomalies – in the event that they see one thing unusual they have to flip again. If all the things appears regular, they have to preserve strolling straight forward. Make the right selection, and the quantity on the exit signal goes up by one. Make the incorrect selection, and also you go all the manner again to zero. With its creepy ambiance and occasional jump-scares, the sport rapidly shot up in gross sales and gained widespread recognition with streamers. It has since been ported to a number of platforms and even has a VR model.
The film Exit 8 makes use of the iconic parts of the sport to current a psychological horror. Kazunari Ninomiya performs the major character, an asthmatic unnamed man caught in the day by day grind of commuting to work on the subway who’s struggling to come back to phrases with turning into a father. Like in the sport, Ninomiya’s character will get trapped in the looping subway passages and should efficiently spot anomalies to achieve Exit 8. The film additionally touches on themes like bystander apathy, dissociation from actuality, and the way smartphones could make us lose observe of our environment.
The movie has an uneasy ambiance and is sort of solely set inside the claustrophobic bounds of the subway station. The subway passages evoke the sport, proper right down to the wandering salaryman NPC, posters, and the overly shiny white, tiled partitions. Some of the anomalies are much like these in the sport, whereas others are distinctive to the film (one of which is able to doubtless be appreciated by Parasite Eve followers).
On September 1, the film’s official X account posted a content warning to potential viewers about “sure scenes which will evoke traumatic recollections of pure disasters, like tsunamis.” This put up led to an outpouring of different responses. Though some customers thanked the manufacturing firm for the heads-up, others criticized the timing of the warning, which got here three days after the movie hit theaters. “Should not this have been issued on opening day?” and “I wouldn’t have gone to see it had I recognized,” are amongst the essential person feedback reported on by Japanese information shops like Yahoo! Japan/J-CAST.
In the meantime, some commenters who hadn’t seen the movie but mused about whether or not the depiction might actually be traumatic sufficient to warrant such a warning, contemplating the “gentle” rising water that seems in the sport, plus the movie’s G ranking (appropriate for all) from Japanese movie classification board Eirin.
The Exit 8 sport does function an anomaly the place a purple tide of blood follows the participant (in a doable homage to The Shining). Nonetheless, on X, film viewers rushed to guarantee folks that the movie’s scene could be very totally different and rather more practical. “I believe people who find themselves acquainted with the The Exit 8 sport usually tend to let their guard down,” stated one user, including that the film’s scenes are “about 500 instances extra ‘real-life tsunami’ than the sport’s.” Others urged these with expertise of disasters like the devastating 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami (which killed almost 20,000 people) to chorus from seeing the movie. With the film getting a “appropriate for all” ranking, some users puzzled if Eirin had completed its job correctly.
Having seen the Exit 8 film, I can affirm that the tsunami scene is extra practical and extended than the sport’s. The torrent of water that floods the subway corridors shouldn’t be blood-red however brown with mud, and rapidly submerges a younger boy. There are first-person photographs from the viewpoint of the major character, conveying his panic as he struggles to get to the floor of the robust waters. There’s additionally an intense scene in which the major character tries to avoid wasting the boy by getting him on high of the ceiling’s exit signal, adopted by a extended shot of the boy curled up fetus-like and surrounded by particles.
The Exit 8 film has been closely marketed in its residence nation, and had the highest-grossing opening weekend for a stay action-movie in Japan thus far this yr (supply: Anime News Network). The primary actor Kazunari Ninomiya has a robust fan following relationship again to when he was a member of the hit boyband Arashi. These elements imply that a bigger viewers, together with these unfamiliar with The Exit 8’s supply materials, are doubtless to take a look at the film, and has amplified the criticism surrounding the tsunami scene.
Exit 8 is presently exhibiting at film theaters in Japan. It has already been screened at some worldwide movie festivals together with Cannes, with additional, staggered releases deliberate in varied international locations. Neon acquired North American rights to Exit 8 in August, and plans a theatrical launch in early 2026.
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Verity Townsend is a Japan-based freelance author who beforehand served as editor, contributor and translator for the sport information web site Automaton West. She has additionally written about Japanese tradition and films for varied publications.