‘Iron Lung’ - Flawed, Overlong...But Awesome

Iron Lung is exactly what I'm looking for in my indie movies. It's a small, self contained, quite literally "chamber" film that uses all of its resources expertly and delivers a movie that is horrifying, mysterious, and a lot of fun. I was aware of Markiplier as a youtuber but I never watched his channel, which is ironic since he covers horror games and I love horror games, but I'm a subscriber now so that has been remedied. For those of you still unaware, Markiplier, or Mark Fischbach, played a little indie horror game back in 2022 called Iron Lung and loved it so much he decided to use $3 million of his own money to make a movie. And boy did he make a movie. The plot of this movie is very simple: 

In the distant future, an event called the Quiet Rapture causes all stars and planets to mysteriously vanish, with only those on space stations and spaceships remaining; the human population is reduced to very few. 

Simon, played by Markiplier, is a convict imprisoned for his involvement in the destruction of a space station and is forced into piloting a slapshot submarine, nicknamed the "Iron Lung", sent to explore a moon covered in an ocean of blood; Simon is told that if he completes this mission, he will be freed. The submarine is welded shut and its porthole is sealed, meaning Simon can only see outside using a crude x-ray camera. Limited communications arrive through a radio from members of the mission's crew present at the surface. 

During the dive, the submarine's sensors indicate movement outside, and Simon captures images of a skeleton on the ocean floor. The crew return the submarine to the surface to review his findings; they choose to send Simon back down to collect a sample from the skeleton. 

Simon, who had been led to believe that he is the submarine's first pilot, discovers audio logs from a previous pilot, proving he was lied to. He tries to tell the commander about an image of a living creature he took, but she urges him to collect the sample. As Simon progresses, blood and an unidentified liquid drip into the sub. Simon is knocked unconscious when he collects a sample. He awakens in the submarine with camera pictures showing movement. He repairs the sub and attempts to return to a charted area, all the while hallucinating and losing touch with reality. 

He then encounters a wrecked submarine labeled SM-8, but is unable to access the data within its black box. A woman talks to him through the radio about a godly light beneath the ocean, and Simon believes he is hallucinating. In a vision where the sub is destroyed, Simon breaks the surface to see a giant eye filling a stormy red sky. Simon awakes again, and the commander says he has been missing for several days, far longer than his oxygen supply should have lasted. She tells him to recover SM-8's data, promising to rescue him herself if he complies, as well as revealing her name to be Ava. 

The rest of the plot contains spoilers, which I will not do because I will urge you to go see this movie in theaters as long as it's still there.

Bottom line, I had a lot of fun with this movie. Cosmic, lovecraftian, sci-fi horror is my jam and Iron Lung delivers this in spades. What most impressed me about this movie was Markipliers impressive acting ability. The role didn't require that much of him but what he delivered was a very grounded believable performance and I'm pretty sure he did his own stunts in this movie, 

which if true, I can't imagine he walked away from it unscarred. He gets thrown around a lot and the bloodbath that is the third act is awe-inspiring. 

Now, this movie isn't perfect, in fact, it's far from it. There are plenty of questions the movie doesn't answer and the premise is also a bit weak. If these missions are so important, why send convicts? Why not send your best and brightest? Why aren't they taking the most care to put these submarines together instead of just welding whatever they can find together just to throw it away? What did Simon do to justify this punishment? Why is there a moon that is just blood? How did it get like that? WHat do they think is actually down there? 

The movie is also overlong. At just over two hours the 2nd act feels drawn out and I'm wondering if this would have been a bit better as a short film? The game only lasts so long so there's a lot of lore you have to build upon to stretch it into a 90min movie alone, so that extra 30min could have been chopped somewhere. 

Does any of this ruin the movie? Not at all. Despite the long run time and the unanswered questions, I was thoroughly entertained. It's hard to have a movie with a single primary character stay interesting, but Iron Lung is smart about having radio communication with the surface for Simon to talk to as well as being a device for some of his hallucinations. This movie gets really unsettling and I'm all for it. 

As I said in the beginning of this review, Iron Lung is everything indie horror can be and more. If I were to compare it to another recent movie released by a youtuber with a substantial following releasing a movie that he claims to have been so passionate about, it took him 10 years to collect all his story elements, stopped giving actual review and critique on his channel so he can make friends in the hollywood industry, get picked up by a horror legend only for it to go by like a fart in the wind and flop at the box office, I'd say this was substantially better. 

This is what indie movies can be when real passion and love for the craft and property is behind it. You can tell how much love was put into this project and it shows up on screen. The cinematography was excellent and a lot of the angles reminded me of the old Resident Evil games which tickled that part of my brain oh so nicely. Definitely go see this movie in theaters and support indie films like this. If you miss it, do your best to find it on streaming as this movie deserves all the love it gets.