Disclaimer: Most reviews of Iron Lung are from people saying “Wow, a youtuber made a movie,” and judging it according to that, or by whether they like the youtuber who made it. Or, gamers will judge it based on the game instead of the film itself. I personally have no connection to either of these, as I’ve never heard of Mark until now, and I don’t play video games. I will be judging this film on its own merits as I do all others.
As Earthlings, we have a lot to be grateful for. On any given Summer night, we can lay down in the grass and stare up at an endless network of stars in the sky, allowing our minds to wander the universe, all the while knowing that these tiny points of light are all billions of miles away, too far for a human to ever reach. But we can dream. And you’ll likely never have your silent bliss ruined by the fact that the faster-than-light rate of expansion of space itself means that this starlight will one day be permanently out of reach from our planet. At that point, our skies will be forever darkened. Future generations might not even believe that stars ever existed (a wink and a nod toward Issac Asimov’s “Nightfall”). But don’t worry, you won’t have to witness that. The Earth and the Sun will be gone long before this happens. In the grand scheme of things, we will have existed for but a single moment in the universe’s timeline, and an instant later, all will be gone.
If you’d like to feel better about that, let me tell you a story. The universe in Iron Lung (2026) doesn’t have the same luxury of time that we have. In this timeline, the event occurs in the not too distant future, and for a very different reason.
Mark Fischbach (AKA: Markiplier)’s Iron Lung brings us a universe in which all stars and habitable planets have disappeared suddenly — No slow trek toward their vanishing point, just a mere snap of the fingers and they’re gone, without explanation. The only humans left are those on space stations and ships that happened to be traveling at the time of the event, which they have dubbed “The Quiet Rapture”. No explosions, no loud noises. Just an instantaneous vanishing that beats out even David Copperfield’s greatest attempts.
We don’t see The Quiet Rapture while it’s happening. Instead, we join the situation already in progress. Our only source of info comes from observing one man who’s been welded into a badly engineered submarine vessel, as others are supposedly trying to save humanity from extinction. Taking place on an alien moon, our main character The Convict / Simon (Mark Fischbach) has been given the chance to earn his freedom by piloting a makeshift submarine into an ocean of blood (Ack!) in search of something, but he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to be looking for.
“…Simon has been given the chance to earn his freedom by piloting a makeshift submarine into an ocean of blood in search of something, but he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to be looking for.”
The terror in Iron Lung is almost undefinable. Rather than relying on jump scares, terrible CGI visuals, or loud noises, Fischbach makes you work for the unease. Throughout the entirety of the piece, we see occasional drips of blood seeping in and rolling down the walls of the ship, along with some other more transparent liquid substance. The liquid eventually begins to thicken until it starts to resemble some sort of living entity, moving on its own volition. Simon’s only visual outside of the vessel is an x-ray camera that he uses to take still pictures of whatever’s in front of the ship. Why an x-ray camera? Because a regular camera can’t see through blood. He eventually sees a skeleton of some sort, but it’s called into question whether it’s actually a skeleton when we’re shown an image that he takes of the humans outside of his ship when he surfaces — They too appear as skeletons due to it being an x-ray camera. So you have to wonder, was the skeleton in the blood ocean actually a skeleton? Or did it only appear that way because he photographed a creature with the x-ray camera? To make it even more confusing, he eventually does take an x-ray picture of something that does not appear as a skeleton, instead taking the form of some sort of sea creature complete with its own skin.
I applaud Markiplier’s use of lighting, shadow, pure atmosphere, and eerie sound to make the film both visually and aurally captivating. From the dark interior of the sub to the spooky sounds both in and outside of the ship, you’re drawn in before even knowing what’s happening. And to add to the fear, the dwindling oxygen supply in the ship causes Simon to hallucinate, or so he thinks. He gets increasingly more paranoid and terrified over the fact that he can’t tell whether what he’s seeing and hearing is even real. Fischbach does a great job of conveying these emotions and convincing you that this is truly a man frightened for his life.
But even more so than just the horror unfolding in this small claustrophobic vessel, we discover more about this man’s life through hallucinations and flashbacks that occur every time he’s in heavy distress, revealing even more about this situation. In one of these flashbacks, we draw into question whether the stars have actually disappeared. Young Simon says to his father, “Stop saying they’re gone. We can all see them,” to which his father replies, “My son… Those stars are already gone. Mere ghost light. Growing dimmer by the day.” Of course, we know that a star’s light takes years to reach Earth. It’s possible that the father is telling the truth, but how would he know? Have the people been lied to this entire time, using the extremely slow speed of light in our universe as an excuse to cover the fabrication? There’s no way to tell.
“…a true indie film…”
If I had any complaint, it would be that some scenes were just too dark to see what was happening, and that sometimes it was hard to tell what was being said over the intercom due to the distortion and crosstalk in the background. But I suspect that this is all on purpose. It’s made to instill fear from the fact that you don’t fully know what you’re seeing or hearing.
What’s special about Iron Lung is that it’s a true indie film, completely self-funded, written, directed, and starring Mark Fischbach. The story is based on a video game of the same name created by David Szymanski, but Fischbach is responsible for nearly everything else. It’s almost a one-man show, aside from some voice acting, and a single scene where you see a couple of other characters outside of the ship’s window when the ship is temporarily lifted out of the ocean. It shows just how much can be done by a single actor on a single set.
Hollywood is simply not capable of this type of film. They spend hundreds of millions on movies that fail or only make a small percentage in return. Meanwhile, Iron Lung was made for $3 million, and has already made around $50 million in theaters as of the time of this review.
Go see Iron Lung. Let your wallet tell Hollywood what you think of their generic film slop.
"…visually and aurally captivating."
