My daughter has become something of a gamer. She’s not hardcore about it, but she enjoys playing. She also enjoys watching others play games on YouTube and the like. There is one YouTuber that she likes who plays a lot of horror games. I figured she might have watched him play Exit 8 and thought she might like this movie. She had not watched him play the game, but thought she’d maybe seen someone else play similar games. But anyway, she said she’d watch the movie with me. A rare treat.
The film plays out very much like a game. In fact, it begins with a first-person point of view, something I hoped would not last. Thankfully, it didn’t. An unnamed man (known as Lost Man in the film and played by Kazunari Ninomiya) stands, listening to music on a crowded subway. He hears a baby crying and watches as another man berates the mother for not keeping the child quiet. Lost Man wants to say something to this man, but instead puts his earbuds back in and ignores the situation.
Later, his girlfriend will call him on the phone, announcing that she is pregnant and wondering what he wants to do about it. He doesn’t know. This situation on the subway makes him think that perhaps he should not try to care for another human being.
As he exits the subway, he finds he is lost inside the labyrinth of underground corridors. Soon he is alone, and the corridors have turned into a game. A sign tells him that he must look for anomalies. If he finds one, he must turn back, but if there are none, then he can keep moving forward. He must make it to Exit 8 to get out of this place. If he makes a mistake, he will start over at Exit 0.
There are basically two corridors that he passes through. The first has several posters, some doors, and vents to look over; the second has a series of lockers and a few other things. He carefully takes note of everything so that he can determine if there is an anomaly.
In the first corridor, a man walks past him. This man does not speak or look at him and is unresponsive to Lost Man’s attempts to talk to him. This man is called Walking Man (Yamato Kochi). Later, we will follow Walking Man as he tries to escape this subway labyrinth. There will also be a young boy (naturally called The Boy and played by Naru Asanuma).
I’ve not played the game, but my assumption is that the anomalies are difficult to spot. Otherwise, it seems like the game would be too easy. I can see players staring at every bit of the wall looking for some slight difference in something. I might be wrong in that assumption. Certainly it isn’t that way in the movie. Though Lost Man looks closely at the posters and doors, etc., almost every time the anomaly is something easy to spot.
Once Walking Man turns and follows him. Another time, one of the doors opens and reveals, well, I won’t reveal what it reveals, but it certainly isn’t a way out. On another occasion, the lights go out, and creepy things happen. These aren’t difficult things to spot, but the characters pretty regularly fail the test. I guess it wouldn’t be much of a movie if they got out in ten minutes. I will say the atmosphere the film projects is pretty thrilling. And sometimes it is effectively creepy. This is a film best seen in a theater, or at least at home at night with all the lights off.
themidnightcafe.org 