phancy.com - horror reviews - MOH 2026

Exit 8



IMDb Info

Release Year: 2025
Runtime: 1h 35m
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Genre Tags: Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Plot Summary: A man becomes increasingly desperate when he realizes he is trapped in a subway station, needing to complete a mission to get out.

Poster - Title Card


phancy.com rating:

phancy.com notes: Interesting, but emotionally detached. The main character is supposed to spot errors in the subway tunnel and turn back if there are some, except he often seems compelled to investigate them, which never ends well. I understand the compulsion on paper, but the movie never made me feel that compulsion. I don't think it understands its own themes (is he the child, is it his potential child, is this about regretting decisions or avoiding decisions?) well enough to create a convincing emotional arc, but I did enjoy it as a Groundhog Day movie about subway architecture.


Outside Reviews:

Brian Tallerico
2.5 out of 4 stars - rogerebert.com

It all blends into a truly effective dreamscape for about 45-50 minutes, especially as the anomalies become more threatening, like when blood literally drips from the ceiling. Kawamura was so clearly inspired by "The Shining" that he literally cribbed one of the most memorable scenes from Kubrick's masterpiece in the final act. He knows you'll sense that this, too, is a piece about a man whose mental unraveling is impacting the world around him, and so he leans right into the Jack Torrance of it all.


Jacob Oller
Grade: B- - Purgatory has nothing on the looped commute of Exit 8

It's not hard to see why these in-between spaces, the repetitive crap that clogs up your day, is resurging as a setting for psychological horror. Workers chafe against back-to-office mandates, their commutes spent sucked into screens filled with doom and gloom or dissociating on familiar drives. Those scrolling in their free time freefall into the infinite feed. Exit 8 excels at capturing that isolation and disaffection in an elegant environmental ouroboros, though what it does once it establishes its atmosphere never matches that simple artistry.