Mikes Film Talk

2026 short film No Exit has a simple, yet clever premise. Take one staircase and add the complete absence of an exit. Effectively, the film utilises this ready made version of a time loop.

Writer/Director James Ongige takes the condensed area and makes it work. There is one slight problem with the film. It actually does nothing to damage the story or its simple premise. It could also not be a problem at all. Read on and see what you think.

No Exit Story

A young woman becomes trapped between two floors. Taking a short flight of stairs, a woman finds herself completing the same journey repeatedly.

The Cast

Abigail Mumbi is young woman.

Slow and Steady, Wins the Race

This is a steady “earner.” Ongige takes time-looping to its most basic form. Like a two level maze with no end. No Exit is a truncated, or kissing cousin or (Your suggestions here.) of another ‘groundhog’ film or two. Kill Me Again is a very convoluted time loop story. *So too is the 2026 film Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die. Just going to use this side note, to say I personally loved both of these other two “time travel” films.*

The No Exit “Problem”

Ongige directed this one. Seth Kiroso and Ongige shared cinematography duties. This feels like another auteur moment. He seems to be a chip off the old Robert Rodriguez cottage industry approach to filmmaking This Kenyan filmmaker does most of the BTS tasks himself. He pulls it off rather well.

It is his expertise here that “seemingly” aids the “mistake. In one cycle of the stairway not headed to heaven, someone blunders into the scene. This knocks us, the viewer, right off track when a male with a book starts to intrude. However, this is not Ongige’s first rodeo. This intrusion hurts nothing.

The No Exit Question

In fact, it could raise a question, or two. Was this uncredited person meant to be there? After all, he stops short and peers around the corner. What did that character see?

The Verdict

This just over 8 minute thriller is deceptively small. It does, however, entertain, despite the finite space with infinite times to find that exit. 3.5 stars out of 5.

The Teaser