I was intrigued to see this movie. The idea is wild. If you don’t know, it was a digital online game first. I played the game and found it interesting. I didn’t complete the game, because there is a lot of repetition needed to do so. The premise is that you are in a subway station and trying to get out. But as you walk down the hall, the hallway turns back into the one you just left. Or does it?

The rule is simple. If you see an anomaly, turn back and go the other way. If there is no anomaly, continue forward. To escape, you must reach level 8 and you start at level 0. The main hallway is about 100 feet long, turns left for about 30 feet, turns right for about 50 feet, then turns left again for 30 feet before turning right into the main hallway again. During the 50 foot section is when you will see the indicator if you advanced to the next level or reset to 0. 

The idea of this being a movie is weird. Because how do you pull that off? 

Finding an anomaly is important. And it could be anything. If something changes, you need to turn back. In the movie, there is a man walking toward the main character in the main hallway. His actions don’t deviate. He doesn’t interact. Just carries on his predetermined path. His constant plodding path is creepy. Especially the moment he becomes the anomaly after passing the main character and his footsteps stop. When the main character turns around, the walking guy is standing a foot away from him grinning.

The idea of this being a 90 minute movie is a problem. And I’m going to get heat for this comparison. It is too long. Trying to turn something that is an interesting short idea into a feature length movie just doesn’t always work. The smash viral hit movie Blair Witch tried the same thing, and in my opinion failed as well. Blair Witch was a neat tidy little short story that would have been an amazing 30-45 minute thing. Adding in an hour of someone running blindly through the woods made it suck. Exit 8 does the same thing to a degree. Because the rule is simple. See an anomaly and turn back. 

When the vent pops off the wall and we hear a baby crying and something skittering around in the hole… you turn back. You don’t gawk at it. You are trying to get out. Who cares why the vent is on the ground. It is an anomaly. But this turns into a 5 minute or so sequence with these super creepy rats with a single human feature on them. It was a neat spooky moment, but in the context of the film, the main character should not have experienced it. Because when the vent is on the ground, you turn around and go back. It should have been a 5 second moment. When you hear water rushing from a point around the next corner, you don’t stand there and wait for it to be seen filling the hallway and coming at you. You turn around when you hear the water, because it is an anomaly. The main character understands the rules very quickly, they are printed on a sign next to the level indicator.

I wanted to like this. I wanted to see what they did here. But the end result was just a bad and boring movie. When they deviated and decided to swap the walking man into the main character role, this was a cool moment. And possibly the best of the movie, because it had something to say and do as a story. Which it did. Easily the part I liked the most.

The overall story of the main character is so obvious that it felt like it had to be a red herring. Just before getting lost in the subway halls, he was on a phone call with his ex girlfriend who told him she was pregnant. So all the baby cries in this were obviously about this new issue for him. 

I’m going to give this a 2 star rating. Because it was a complete waste of time, but the 45 second bit where we see a skinless rat with an ear on his back, followed by a skinless rat with a nose, and then two more that have eyes, and one with a mouth, and they momentarily group next to each other creating a face. That was fantastic. The rest of it was a rather boring movie. It wasn’t as boring as Skinamarink (that movie I actively was hoping for any reason to leave the room and not pause the movie.) This just hit streaming on Shudder and I am thrilled that I was able to see it streaming free rather than paying the $30 I would have spent on a ticket and snacks at a theater.