“Iron Lung” is an independently made movie based off of an indie video game of the same name. It is set in a sci-fi world where humanity is struggling to survive and the population is declining. Despite this, humanity is still trying to explore and find salvation. They find moons that are covered in oceans of blood and want to discover what’s below the surface. Due to the population declining, humanity can’t waste important scientists on these exploration missions. Instead, they have criminals do the job for them, with the promise of their freedom. The main character Simon (Mark Fischbach) is one of these criminals who has to explore the ocean in a small submarine named the Iron Lung, while there is something sinister under the surface.
This film is an independently made film by the YouTuber, Markiplier. Because of his well known Youtube presence, he has quite a cult following, which helped him get his movie into theaters and make the movie as successful as it is. The movie gained around thirty million in the box office in its first, and beat the likes of Disney and Sam Raimi. I feel that this movie is very revolutionary and inspiring to show what’s possible for future independently made films.
I personally enjoyed the movie very much. It was very interesting and suspenseful, so it kept you hooked. I do feel like there are things that could be improved upon though.
The first issue had to do with the lore of the movie. I purposefully did not consume any media from the original game, nor did I research the lore before watching the movie. I did this to see if the movie could stand on its own without any outside information or backstory of the world of “Iron Lung.” Unfortunately, I felt that it was difficult to understand some of the things that were going on due to the lore being a bit confusing. Some events and names felt like they would only be recognized or feel important if you already had prior knowledge about the world of Iron Lung. A specific detail is that I felt the movie doesn’t really explain how humanity got here without knowing about the details of “The Silent Rapture” from the game.
Another issue that I had was some of the sound design. Quite a few other critics agreed, saying how it was somewhat difficult to understand what people were saying over the speakers of the Iron Lung. Closer to the end there was a lot of distortion to the voices and this caused some confusion on what was being said as well. I think this might’ve been a production error, since the scene felt as if you should be able to hear the dialogue. Although, excluding some difficulty to understand through the speaker, the ambiance of the Iron Lung and the environment was very immersive. The sounds were perfectly made for a horror movie like this with all sorts of creaking and banging that just brought so much more fear and claustrophobia to the Iron Lung.
Lastly, while I didn’t have that much of an issue with it, the pacing is somewhat slow. The first hour and a half drags on while Simon explores the ocean and discovers more of what is going on, and the last half and hour goes by very quickly with so much happening that it feels like whiplash. This movie is more of a slow burn to leave you asking, “did all of that just happen?” by the end of the movie.
On the other hand, there were a lot of things I liked about the movie. For one, I think it was a pretty scary film. It was very claustrophobic with how the entire movie took place in the submarine which brought a lot of suspense to the film. It really makes you feel trapped with Simon in the Iron Lung. It makes you scared, along with him, for what is in the blood ocean. I also appreciated how the use of blood in this movie wasn’t like most horror movies. Horror movies tend to use blood as just a gore or shock factor, but “Iron Lung” feels like it uses blood as just part of the world. The blood belongs in the world, and has a purpose. The gore and body horror of the movie also helps in the horror aspect since it continues to put you into Simon’s shoes as you realize how hopeless he feels for his survival.
Second, the special effects and the overall set was very well done and an absolute feat for an indie film with a somewhat small team. The prosthetics were incredibly well made and looked very realistic, and makeup and hair did an amazing job with making the world feel lived in and post-apocalyptic. The CGI was also spectacular for an indie movie with a smaller budget compared to big Hollywood companies.
Lastly, looking at the movie compared to the video game, this is a very accurate adaptation. There are things that are different, like the two main creatures being replaced by one singular entity. The movie also explains a lot about the world and shows things like the space stations which we never see in the game.
“Iron Lung” was an extremely enjoyable movie. I was left thinking about it for days after the theater because of how much I loved it, something recent horror movies have not made me feel. It was a very entertaining horror movie with an interesting story and world. I would recommend it to fans of horror, eldritch entities, some psychological horror, and especially to Markiplier fans. I do not think this is a movie for everyone though, it can be difficult to understand everything in the movie and it can feel slow at times. Overall it was a thrilling film that I feel like people should be more aware of.
