Mark Fischbach’s indie movie, Iron Lung is an incredibly suspenseful movie, and touched deeply on horror without needing jump scares. This movie is a depiction of the video game under the same name, developed by David Szymanski.
In Iron Lung, it is set far in the future where Simon (Mark Fischbach), a convict, is thrown into a rusty, poorly put and welded together submarine nicknamed the “Iron Lung” to explore an ocean of blood. This anomaly was discovered after an event that disrupted the entire universe, referred to as The Quiet Rapture, where all planets and stars completely vanished. Before The Quiet Rapture, humans had mastered space travel and began setting up space stations on different planets, making them habitable, which after this event, humans were isolated on space stations. Without planets, humans were left to scavenge the remaining four moons for resources, one of them being moon AT-5, where the blood ocean is located.
In the submarine, there is a control panel where coordinates are displayed, along with a lever to control the ship’s movement. In the very back of the submarine, there is a button that activates a camera, and next to it there is a giant screen to display the photos taken, which is how Simon navigates through the blood. There is also an inactive computer on the opposite side of the giant screen.
Additionally, there is a speaker where the captains of the Consolidation of Iron (C.O.I.), can give direct commands to Simon, which can be seen slightly in the top left corner in the photo above.
Now, I personally think the movie is amazing, especially for a passion project coming from Fischbach. However, I could come off as biased, as I’ve been watching his YouTube channel, Markiplier, since 2014. I am honestly kind of thankful for the movie, because even though it is basically a replica of the game, it makes the content of the game a lot more easier to digest.
However, a pattern in the game and in the movie is the lack of clarification on what’s going on, and especially towards the end of the movie everything gets layered on top of each other, and it’s a bit confusing on what’s going on. I also had to do some research after watching the movie to understand it. Luckily, the background is pretty compact and once viewers understand a certain subject it’s easier to understand other things in the movie. I do think there is a bonus to lack of clarification, which are theories. Some people prefer a straightforward answer to everything, but I love being able to try and piece a puzzle together.
My two biggest complaints: audio and the layering of events.
When Simon came across a skeleton using his camera, he notified the crew through the speaker that he had found a skeleton, which then he was brought back to the surface and was able to directly speak to the crew and their captain, Ava (Caroline Rose Kaplan). While we can hear Simon clearly, we can barely hear the crew outside of the submarine, and when they speak it is all mumbly. Which of course, could be an artistic choice, but there is definitely vital information missed, especially when he was told the camera is an x-ray camera after blasting one of the crew members, Jack (Sean McLoughlin) when he hit the button out of anger. There was lots of arguing and distress but you could barely comprehend anything being said. There’s also audio problems through the speaker, and I am not referring to the purposeful glitching in the speaker, but whenever there is a conversation between Simon and whoever is on the speaker, they can sometimes sound incredibly low and I can’t decipher what they are saying. It’s fairly annoying missing such vital information, especially when you can tell it’s important because of the infamous little pause and Simon looking bewildered at whatever was just voiced.
When Simon came across a skeleton using his camera, he notified the crew through the speaker that he had found a skeleton, which then he was brought back to the surface and was able to directly speak to the crew and their captain, Ava (Caroline Rose Kaplan). While we can hear Simon clearly, we can barely hear the crew outside of the submarine, and when they speak it is all mumbly. This of course, could be an artistic choice, but there is definitely vital information missed, especially when he was told the camera is an x-ray camera after blasting one of the crew members, Jack (Sean McLoughlin), when he hit the button out of anger. There were lots of arguing and distress, but you could barely comprehend anything being said. There’s also audio problems through the speaker, and I am not referring to the purposeful glitching in the speaker, but whenever there is a conversation between Simon and whoever is on the speaker, they can sometimes sound incredibly low and I couldn’t decipher what they were saying. It’s fairly annoying missing such vital information, especially when you can tell it’s important because of the infamous little pause and Simon looking bewildered at whatever was just voiced.
Now, towards the end especially, events got extremely messy. It kind of feels like the beginning was extremely dragged out and the end was fast-paced, which is irritating because the end is when we finally touched on what was actually going on with why he was sent down into the blood ocean, what’s in the blood ocean, and if he could survive. There were also like three other subplots brought in alongside the “find your way back after getting thrown off track,” plot, which again, these subplots were only brought out toward the end. I wish these plots had more time to be represented more clearly. Like the mysterious light at the bottom of the ocean floor, and who the woman’s voice (Elsie Lovelock), was that guided Simon to those coordinates. Also the SM-8, which became extremely significant after being located and Simon notifying the crew through the speaker. The SM-8 was a submarine that unlike the other submarines thrown into the deep, like the SM-13 (which is the one Simon is in), was meant to last and explore and get the most information they can out of the ocean. However the scientists who drove the SM-8 met an unfortunate end and when Simon locates their ship, it’s ripped to pieces. It is believed one of the scientists who died on the SM-8 is connected to the voice that guides Simon to the light and is yelling at him at the end, but there’s no clear answer.
I think the game in general was difficult to represent. However, despite the very few flaws the movie was extremely impressive, especially for Fischbach’s first movie. Even though there were not really any jump scares, every factor had the ability to make me fearful and be on edge throughout it. For example, the lighting had a powerful influence, as well as when there was no speaking and just the sound of Simon’s fear, the camera system, and also the fact there was this underlying feeling of no escape and insanity. Iron Lung is an impressive first movie for Mark Fischbach, and I am excited for him to pursue his passion.
