I applaud the use of lighting, shadow, pure atmosphere, and eerie sound to make Iron Lung both visually and aurally captivating. From the dark interior of the submarnie to the spooky sounds 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 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. In one of these flashbacks, we 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 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. Also, sometimes it was hard to make out what was being said over the intercom due to background distortion and crosstalk. 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 it is temporarily lifted out of the ocean. It shows just how much can be done by a single actor on a single set with the a filmmaker full of determination.
Hollywood is simply not capable of this type of film. They spend hundreds of millions on movies that fail or only recoup a small percentage. Meanwhile, Fischbach’s labor of love made for $3 million and has already grossed around $50 million in theaters as of this review. Go see Iron Lung and let your wallet tell Hollywood what you think of their generic film slop.
"…visually and aurally captivating."
