EXIT (Thailand 2024) - MINI REVIEW

Squid Game: The Movie.

The entire class of a Thai high school ends up at a carnival where they are trapped in a tent with a mysterious mime who wants to play a game with them. But as the teens quickly discover, a wrong answer will cost you your life.

As the night gets longer, the teens move from game to game, their numbers slowly dwindling until they can understand the true purpose of their involvement in this deadly carnival attraction.

And the problem is that we don’t actually find out why they were involved in this deadly game, with the typical teen horror movie cop-out of friendship, love and the meaning of life seemingly being the answer to all the teen angst in this movie.

If you were to try and explain this movie in a few words to someone else - such as what I am trying to do here - then it would be: Squid Game meets Escape Room with biblical reference. All the games that the teens play in this movie are kids games, just like Squid Game. We’ve got charades, hide and seek, hangman and a treasure hunt, mixed in with one kind of biblical game where the last supper is turned into a calorie consuming contests.

The problem with the film is that it’s both good and bad. There are some clever moments and a slick production behind this. It’s definitely more of a horror-lite movie like Five Nights at Freddies, rather than your typical bloodthirsty Thai horror film. In this case there is more thriller and teen drama elements than horror, and I assume that has contributed to the low scores of the film

But then there are some downright confusing bits that throw the vibe of the movie right out. And one of the things the movie does very badly is in its sense of time. Let me point out two clear examples of this in play.

The first is the game of hide and seek. The teens are given 6 hours to hide while a band of strange clownlike creatures stalk them. We never know how many clowns there are, or even what they are. From what I can approximate, the area that the teens are hiding in seems to be the equivalent of two or three soccer pitches - so its big, but not exactly a large space to hide in for such a long time

What we end up is with one group holed up in a control room with a window, making their location obvious. Another two hide behind the wooden cutout boards where you poke your head through. For some reason, holding that pose for hours was more logical to them than just hiding behind the boards. Then there is the strange moment when the clock reads 1 hour 30 minutes, the characters move around 50m through a building and then comment there is 1 hour 22 minutes left. You expect the audience to believe a 50 meter walk took 8 minutes?

Most egregious is the second last set of games. The teens are split into two groups. One group much gorge themselves on food for 30 minutes and eat a combined total of 25,000 calories, while the other group plays a game of hangman. The five team members are given 10 seconds each to solve the word “Sacrifice” - even factoring in wrong answers, the ringmasters dialogue and other set ups, this game would have taken no longer than 10-15 minutes to complete, yet the movie is edited in a way to show their game and the food game ending at the same time. It’s just wildly immersion breaking.

Then there is the silly out of place humour - except for the humourous gags towards vegans - and the fact that not only are all of these teens drop dead gorgeous, but in real life most of the actors are over 20, with the actress who plays super bitch Jennie being 34 years old, with the main lead actress not even being Thai, but Vietnamese.

The movie is really all over the place, but there are times where it absolutely hooked me in and had my full attention. If you can excuse all the typical teen tropes of the teens being smarter than adults, the moody teen sacrificing himself and the quiet, misunderstood pretty girl hooking up with the popular good-looking guy, then you might enjoy this film. But if the fact that the ending never explains why the whole event takes place would annoy you, then I would steer clear of this one, because there is nothing worse than being frustrated at an open ending to a movie you’ve invested two hours into and just want some answers.

With that in mind, the movie is not a total loss. I give this movie 2 ghosts out of 5. The concept of Squid Game The Movie, minus all the gore, is a good one. But having a cast of self-indulgent and angsty teens isn’t the way to do it.

Genre Thriller Horror Drama
Director William Henry Aherne
Starring Vachiravit Paisarnkulwong, Ngoc Lan Vy, Worranit Thawornwong
Original Title ปิด เกม ล่า
Alternative Title Exit
Country of Origin Thailand
Release Date 29 August 2024