Exit 8 director Genki Kawamura on why he adapted the indie horror game into a movie: ‘It reminded me of purgatory’
Exit 8 is now showing in theaters, adapting the video game of the same name. Set in a looping subway system with seemingly no escape, it’s a liminal horror nightmare.
In my Exit 8 review, I said you might end up dreading your next subway ride even more after watching it. It’s amazing how we can take a normal, everyday place and make it so terrifying.
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Kawamura continued: “There was a different story and different drama with each player, and it served as a way to gain insight into human nature. The Tokyo subway system, the corridors, it’s something we see a lot in our daily lives.”
“THE Exit 8 The designer used this subway backdrop to loop in this repeat, it reminded me of Purgatory and Dante’s. Divine Comedy where the various sins that humans have committed are almost reflected back to them as anomalies.
The film develops the story of Exit 8 video game, with The Lost Man facing a personal dilemma as he receives a life-changing phone call. The game is first-person and doesn’t have a backstory like this, so Kawamura worked with lead actor Kazunari Ninomiya to bring the game’s concept to the big screen.
Kawamura told me, “Kazunari Ninomiya, who plays the lost man in the film, is a really passionate gamer. And what we were trying to do with this film was not so much adapting a video game into a film as trying to blur the lines between what the video game medium is and what the cinema medium is?”
“So every time we called Cut on set, Ninomiya would pull out his cell phone and start playing video games. That’s the level of his enthusiasm for games. So he had a really good understanding of what we were trying to do on a conceptual level.”
I think that Exit 8 is a very faithful adaptation of the game, and those who have already played it will be happy with how it translates to the screen. It truly feels like a love letter to video games and was beautifully filmed to reflect their style. The end result is really very effective.
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