Exit 8 is the kind of horror film that only gets scarier after you watch it. When I left the theatre and ran straight to catch my train home, the subway station threw me right back into the film’s universe. Based on a video game of the same name by Kotake Create, Exit 8 is about a lost man who finds himself trapped in an endless passage while attempting to exit a subway station. The only way out is through the mysterious “Exit 8”, and there are rules on how to get there: “Do not overlook anything out of the ordinary… If you discover an anomaly, turn back immediately… If you don’t, proceed in the direction of Exit 8.”

Plenty of video game adaptations fail to make striking cinema, but I found Exit 8 hypnotic. The basis of the game and the film is repetition, but somehow it never got boring. It almost put me in a trance: I was checking for anomalies alongside the protagonist (who we only know as The Lost Man) within the otherwise orderly underground passage. Was there something strange about the Exit 8 sign? Were the lights different when he turned the corner? Sometimes, it was obvious, leaning into more traditional horror scenes and gore. But the most frightening thing about Exit 8 was how eerily mundane it all was. 

Much like the game, the film captures the pervasive anxiety of feeling trapped without our everyday routines. The film’s writer and director, Genki Kawamura, has expanded on what lies beneath that feeling – the inescapable guilt that builds when we tune out our natural impulses in favour of falling in line within a capitalistic hellscape. Sometimes, the most horrifying thing to face is the recurring nightmare of numbing ourselves to the world around us, in order to make it to work on time. After reaching the end of the film, Kawamura wanted the audience’s “ordinary” lives to feel like a continuation of what they had just seen – meaning the nightmare never really ends. 

Below, we spoke to Kawamura about the sin of apathy, human nature and creating a film that follows you home.

What was it about this game that you knew made it worthy of a film adaptation?

Genki Kawamura: I played the game myself almost immediately after it came out, and I had my fair share of frustration trying to get out of Exit 8. But I also watched a lot of streamers, and I realised that there were as many stories surrounding this game as there were people playing it. I think that is because the nature of it is so simple. It made me think of it almost as a device to give us a peek into human nature, which [made it perfect] for adapting and translating into a movie.

In the game and the film, there’s obviously a lot of repetition. How did you factor in people’s attention span when making a film that’s essentially about going in an infinite loop?

Genki Kawamura: Instead of looking at this as a video game adapted into a film, I took an approach of trying to blur the lines between the video game and movie mediums. I wanted to create a new type of experience. At times, the audience was put into the perspective of the player; at other times, the audience almost feels as though they’re watching someone else play a video game, as though it were a Twitch livestream. I think that captured the current landscape of the video game industry holistically, showing different gradients of how people interact with this interactive medium.

It was captivating. I think I finally understand why people watch videos of other people playing games. I know the game doesn’t explain the characters’ backstories, but we did get glimpses of those in the film. How did you build those out?

Genki Kawamura: None of the characters in the movie have names. I did that so they almost feel like non-playable characters in a video game because, when I look at my own life when I’m commuting on the train in Tokyo, I feel like I’m the main character. From someone else’s point of view, they’re the main character, and I’m the NPC. I wanted to highlight each NPC in this larger world and give them their own life. That’s why it changes perspectives as we follow from character to character. 

“I think there is this certain apathy that we can feel right below our skin. This sin builds up over time. So, I thought, what if that guilt builds up in this very white, sanitised corridor and manifests itself as anomalies reflected back on the individuals who are living with that guilt? That would be really terrifying”

What do you think it is about a train station, a commute, that captures such a universal interest?

Genki Kawamura: The theme is quite universal. As I commute on the subway in Tokyo every day, there are many people that I share the car with, but we’re all on our smartphones, so much so that it feels very isolating. If a baby were crying, I’m sure most people wouldn’t even notice what’s happening. And if you look at what’s on our screens, there’s violence and wars. We see it, but we pretend not to notice. I think there is this certain apathy that we can feel right below our skin. This sin builds up over time. So, I thought, what if that guilt builds up in this very white, sanitised corridor and manifests itself as anomalies reflected back on the individuals who are living with that guilt? That would be really terrifying.

And it was terrifying! In your bestselling book, If Cats Disappeared from the World, you also explored regret, mortality, the human condition and connection. What interests you most in telling these stories?

Genki Kawamura: Spanning all the different media that I work in, I think 80 per cent of my work is not necessarily to create, but to notice things that are happening in this world. What is it that people want or yearn for? What is it that they fear? Taking what I notice and then translating it into a story – conveying it back to people in a way that will allow them to notice and see the world in a slightly different way – is the reason I create. 

What did you want audiences to leave the theatre with?

Genki Kawamura: I made this movie to be seen in theatres and not on smartphones. There’s the time that it takes to get to the theatre and the time after you’ve seen the movie that you're presumably going back home. Some people might take a subway or train, and I wanted the movie to continue. After seeing the film, I wanted people to go through that same mundane act of transportation, but see the world through a different lens. In Tokyo, the subways have a very unique jingle, and I wanted that jingle to continue beyond the film. You hear it in the film, and then you hear it in real life – it’s almost linking the two worlds.

Exit 8, distributed by NEON, is out in US theatres on April 10 and UK theatres on April 24.