Iron Lung – Review

The stars are gone. The planets have disappeared. Only life on ships remains, causing nothing but universal chaos. Supplies dwindle, infrastructure crumbles. Too few to rebuild, too many to feed. Humanity decays. This is the “Quiet Rapture.” But… is there any hope in the infinite darkness? Rumors in the post-apocalyptic future of a moon that holds an ocean of blood… Is this really a saving grace? Well… sure why not! Time to visit this moon!

A convict named Simon (Fischbach) is ready to do some good for a change. He is in a cramped submarine type craft, prime for deep blood-ocean exploration. There might be flames on this depth test run through unpredictable terrain. Uh oh. He is taking his orders from the surface crew while his ship descends deep below to coordinates on this dangerous mission. As Simon follows his instructions and collects data, things begin to get weirder and weirder inside his vessel.

Iron Lung is based on a video game and was created by a YouTube star Mark Fischbach who goes by Markiplier on that platform and covers game-related material for his videos. Impressively he wrote, directed, and starred in the film, as well as financing the freaking thing, all while also getting the video game creator for help with the story and physically be on set at times. Damn.

The strange in a good way script holds an interesting enough story, and it was a modest enough budget for pretty much one set and a very minor group of characters, however it doesn’t feel overly lacking and saves most of its thrill for its final chapters. It gets some of its acting chops from voice work which is all admirably done and helps add to the tension and psychological nature of the tale. This makes it a bit more than a one-man show, but as far as screen presence that is a lot of its showing.

While I didn’t love every single minute of it, and it is long, I was impressed by the end credits. It won’t be a win for everyone, and it needed more frenetic pacing, but it’s not bad all things considered. It has a lot of psychological space madness and is a quality production which shows a promising career ahead. Pacing was ther biggest issue, but there is more good than bad by a wide margin, plus it holds a nice bonus tie-in to the world of video gaming with Troy Baker’s inclusion.

I have not played the game this was based on, I am not really familiar with the creator’s YouTube channel, so, do not call me an expert on this film, or uhhh, much about any of this.