By Matthew Moorcroft

Strong Recommendation

• Directed by Mark Fischbach
• Starring Mark Fischbach, Caroline Rose Kaplan, Troy Baker, Elle LaMont
• R

Made on a small budget of $3 million or less, Iron Lung is something of a minor miracle in the fact that it’s even good in the first place. Mark Fischbach – better known as Markiplier both online and to his fans – isn’t necessarily a newcomer to horror or acting or even writing and directing but he’s certainly a newcomer to the realm of feature films and fighting for space with the big dogs. While Iron Lung‘s financial success is certainly impressive and will likely send ripples down Hollywood, it’s likely in retrospect that, due to the large fanbase Mark has cultivated over the years, the success on the business side was likely inevitable.

So again, the minor miracle here is that Iron Lung is also a success on the creative front; a wildly original, moody, atmospheric horror film that has it’s footsteps firmly in old school, nuts and bolts filmmaking craft rather then anything flashy or overly produced. Mark’s restraint in holding the camera in place more then not, with several sequences shot in a singular angle rather then large amounts of cutting, showcases a keen eye for composition. This is especially noticeable due to the small scale setting of the sub, which forces him as a director to get increasingly creative with his angles without ever losing sense of geography. On that front, Iron Lung is honestly a triumph, and a test reel for what he’s likely able to do with a larger budget in the future.

With it’s setting in a grim post-apocalyptic future where the stars are burnt out and humanity is on the verge of extinction, Iron Lung‘s bleakness is only rivaled by the purposeful vagueness of it’s story, which boils mostly down to a quest to find the truth behind what exactly caused this apocalypse in the first place. Mark’s script keeps things grounded and character centric first, placing his lead character – named Simon in this adaptation – as the singular focus as we slowly but surely see him begin to lose his mind and awareness while dealing with a cosmic horror that is possibly hiding underneath the surface of his ocean of blood. And that ocean of blood is more of a promise then a setting, promising the audience that yes, they are indeed going there at some point.

And they absolutely do. Iron Lung‘s slow – maybe slightly too slow buildup – payoffs in a mountain of gore and red goop that could be too much for some audiences but will likely be delightful for horror buffs and blood hounds. But in the ambiguity of it all is still the sense something is quite not right. Is Simon just hallucinating all of this? Or is this real? A mix of both? The movie’s lack of answers keep the audience on edge and force a level of concentration that the movie immediately exploits. Every creak becomes audible, every button push could be the last. The oppressive sound design, which starts as soon as the sub enters the ocean and the clear voice on the radio becomes garbled and impossible to understand, becomes more about placing the audience into a state of sensorial fear.

All of this likely comes from Mark’s experience as a gamer, which Iron Lung does sometimes still feel like. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as many video game adaptations have a difficult time reconciling their game origins with the transference to another medium, and Iron Lung at least uses the procedure of task management and mapping out locations as part of the narrative structure of the film. Much of the middle section of Iron Lung almost works as a procedural, seeing Simon get better at his task and his job while still trying to find a way to survive. A small portion of this could get repetitive, but once it does, Mark thankfully stops it and heads straight into something else to reset and reconnect with the audience. There is a confidence in it’s storytelling allows itself to even try something like this, even if it’s likely it knows it will lose some viewers in the process.

That ambition in it’s filmmaking is the most admirable trait about Iron Lung, even as it’s probably not as scary as it likely wants to be or sometimes tries to have it’s cake and eat it as well in terms of what it wants to explain and what it doesn’t. But as a first time feature from a director who really has never worked on a scale this large before, it’s certainly a massive achievement and represents a much stronger, more unique voice then one could have predicted from a funny gamer who records himself on YouTube. It’s very likely that better things are coming from Markiplier in the future with Hollywood now in his sights, and as a start to that, Iron Lung is a great first step into the vast, cold unknown of superstardom. Congrats Mark, you made a real fucking movie.