#41: EXIT 8

 

STARRING: Kazunari Ninomiya, Yamato Kochi, Naur Asanuma, Kotone Hanase and Nana Komastsu. Based on the video game The Exit 8 by Kotake Create. Screenplay by Kentaro Hirase and Genki Kawamura. Directed by Genki Kawamura. Running time 95 minutes. 

The plot sees a nameless bloke known only as The Lost Man on his morning commute on a packed tube train. He witnesses an angry commuter absolutely lose his rag over a screaming baby and its mother and does nothing to help. Then his ex-girlfriend calls to him him she's pregnant and asks him what he wants to do, it's clear that he's not ready to be a daddy and tells her he's on his way to the hospital to meet her and gets off the train. That's when things go all Twilight Zone and The Lost Man finds him self trapped in a Möbius loop of white tiled tunnels and given a set of instructions to find his way to Exit 8, he is on Exit 0. He is told to look for anomalies and when he finds one to turn back, otherwise to keep going. This he does and meets a series of other people, the Walking Man, a Young Woman and a Small Boy. Along the way he either makes the right choice and moves on to the next level, or gets it wrong and goes back to zero, all the while confronting his shortcomings and accepting the responsibilities of potential parenthood. And that's about it for the Möbius loop plot. It ends with The Lost Man back on his morning commute with the screaming baby, but how will it end?

This is not a horror film, do not be fooled by the trailer, and it's not a bad thing either. This is a film that makes you think, you play along with The Lost Man, learning the rules of this game and you become engaged with the frightened young man as he accepts responsibility and the prospects of becoming a father and all that entails. 

It's well made, the set is brilliant and it's different in style look, feel and acting. It's also mercifully brief at only 95 mintues long. I gotta say I guessed what was going on and it didn't bother me. Satisfying. Nothing more, nothing less, except the horror film the trailer and advertising screamed it was. 

8/10