Taking Over the Controls: Exit 8 Film Review

Still from Exit 8. Photo courtesy of Elevation Pictures.

Exit 8 poster.

2026 has been a busy year for video game adaptations, with The Super Mario Galaxy Movie already hitting the big screen, and Street Fighter and Resident Evil still on the way before year’s end. While many of these projects lean into franchise familiarity, a smaller wave of adaptations have begun to experiment with how to translate gameplay onto the big screen.

Despite receiving mixed reviews, Mark Fischbach’s Iron Lung, (which also hit theatres earlier this year) proved that there is a dedicated fanbase that wants to see their favourite indie games receive the blockbuster treatment. Director Genki Kawamura’s Exit 8 offers these fans a very earnest adaptation of the indie game hit of the same name.

Adapted from the walking sim by KOTAKE CREATE, Exit 8 expands on the game’s deceptively simple premise: a man trapped in a seemingly endless underground subway station must identify subtle changes in his environment in order to escape. The film drops viewers in with minimal exposition, and borrowing from its origins, starts with first-person camera movement.

The camerawork is clever at first, but once it slips away, and without the interactivity of the game, the film loses some of the tension that makes the gameplay interesting. Scares that feel gripping while you’re in control, have some of the edge removed when you’re an observer watching the screen. At times, it feels like you’re watching a particularly passive play-through instead of the film itself.

The film focuses on subtler scares then many of its blockbuster counterparts, favouring the psychological horror of claustrophobia and confusion, over gruesome violence or jumpscares. Exit 8’s use of liminal space aesthetics is reminiscent of backrooms internet horror, tapping into the feeling of discomfort with spaces that should make sense but don’t. For some viewers this will be a welcome reprieve from the typical horror movie tropes, but for fans of the game, this might feel lackluster.

Even so, Exit 8 is an unnerving watch and an interesting new addition to the growing canon of video game adaptations. If the film does make you want to take over the controls at times, you’re in luck! Exit 8 and its sequel are now on sale on Steam so if you leave the theatre thinking you would’ve escaped in five minutes, you can put your skills to the test.

Exit 8 is in theatres now.