TIFF50 Movie Review: Exit 8 (Written by Ben Scanga)

In an astonishing turn of events, this movie actually exists. You may have seen clips from the film’s source material pop up in your algorithm sometime within the past couple of years, because Exit 8 is based on a thirty-to-forty-minute, nano-budget horror game that was created in 2023, one that thrived off of point-and-click era jumpscares and puzzle game aesthetics— it quickly gained a cult following due to those two points alone. Genki Kawamura, a three-time novelist and international bestseller who is making a pitstop at TIFF this year to showcase his sophomore feature, appears to have a thorough understanding of the concepts and ideas behind the game's popularity. Immediately, the film throws you into a first-person perspective of a man riding the subway— observing his surroundings, listening to music, debating whether or not he should screen calls from his girlfriend; the barrage of stimulation and immediate immersion make for a pleasing intro that doesn’t require very much exposition for the scope of the film by the time the first act is over and done with. However, this is where the grand hypothesis of “how do you bring a quickplay horror game to feature length?” (even Five Nights at Freddy’s was longer gameplay-wise. Clocking in at just under 100 minutes, this film is proudly securing a feature runtime and establishing its own narrative structure and sense of hyperrealistic laws/lore in the process. It all begs the question: is it good?

To keep it concise: yes and no. There is a lot that works, but there’s also a lot that doesn’t work within Kawamura’s tendencies towards horror filmmaking and his sense of consistent tone. This isn’t always a bad thing. Quite like Until Dawn— another horror film with surreal qualities that brandishes a video game as its acquired source material— the tone of the picture can be so jarring and sporadic that it catches you off guard harder than some mainstream Hollywood productions are able to with prolonged sequences and intentional mise-en-scène. In terms of genuinely scary moments, there are a good few within the homogenous mixture. Especially near the end of the first act, when a character’s presence is revealed with a slow pan multiple times; no build-up, no music, no foreshadowing that would cause immediate concern: just a sudden presence. It’s enough to make the average audience member jump out of their seat a few times. At the press screening, there was a lot of laughter and a lot of gasps, quite often simultaneously, and this begins to foreshadow my grievances towards the tone of the overall narrative. When the environment is first introduced, it’s incredibly effective; the colours are shiny and glistening in an uncanny manner, lights flicker and provide fluorescent tones; everything about the environment is claustrophobic and creepy. Where Kawamura begins to slip up is within his tendency to bite off more than he can chew from a conceptual perspective. There are a lot of moments within the narrative, especially during that second half, that feature scenes which are bizarre, surreal, and wildly entertaining. The main problem is, they’re not very scary, and my gut is telling me Kawamura wanted these moments to operate as food for thought, as something chilling. It’s all the blown-out maximalism that he traded in for quaint minimalism (within the context of contemporary (mostly) one-location horror films) that’s driving the script and its effectiveness as a motion picture in the wrong direction.

I can’t blame Kawamura in this regard; he’s attempting to craft a cohesive and involving narrative out of source material that doesn’t have that much lore already attached to its property. It’s also important to acknowledge that this could’ve gone so much worse from that perspective. At the end of the day, the source material remains relatively respected, and the environment that made it so engaging within the gaming market is translated to the silver screen relatively well in controlled doses. The problem resides within the second act’s introduction of exposition that takes place outside of the liminal space our protagonist is trapped in. This includes, but is not limited to, trouble-in-paradise fights between our protagonist and his partner, as well as sequences that take place on a beach. This is when the narrative truly starts to lose the audience, as not only does it lose control of its sense of tone and atmosphere it was so delicately developing during the early stages, it loses its sense of horror. If anything, the narrative conclusion and the situations our characters face throughout the runtime lead to the idea that this is more of a romantic drama with surreal elements sprinkled throughout than a horror film. Its commentary on domestic relationships and anxiety is nothing engaging or fresh either; it simply pads the runtime and acts as a narrative device for uninspired, albeit slightly effective, pseudo-emotionally charged spectacles. At the end of the day, it all feels more melodramatic than poignant, and it doesn’t bleed into any of the techniques the film uses to build tension with either. Kawamura flirts with the idea of exposing the audience to a perspective of the outside world from inside the claustrophobic, liminal loop; however, it is never revealed. If it weren’t for the beach scene, this would make for a relatively impactful addition to the hyperrealistic world he’s trying to involve the audience in. Instead, it’s more akin to Blair Witch (a movie which also screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, during 2016’s Midnight Madness programme)--- a film that put so much energy into building fear over the faceless identity of the witch, just to reveal its figure and presence with goofy CGI during the last five minutes. In isolated fragments, the horror and the atmosphere of this film genuinely work very well; not only do they feel refreshing, they’re also incredibly in touch with horror games from an aesthetic and formal perspective; the filmmakers have an obvious finger on the pulse in terms of how a good amount of the jumpscares are developed and executed here. It’s just a shame so much time is spent developing the beats of a narrative that doesn’t feel suited for the film that it’s operating within.

Thanks to Elevation Pictures and TARO PR for providing us with access to this film. Exit 8 opens in Canadian theaters in 2026.