Foreword
I feel it is necessary to say that I am perhaps a bit biased when it comes to this review. Being a content creator myself, of course, I know who Markiplier is. I followed Mark during the start of Five Nights at Freddy's, back when both he and the game were a mystery to me. I was never a huge fan of the overreaction to horror games lots of Let's Players were known for (JackScepticEye, PewDiePie, Kilplixism), but something about Mark's personality convinced me to give him a follow. And now - eleven years later (Death approaches closer to me every single day), I'm sitting down at 2:30 in the morning after seeing a late-night screening of his feature length movie, "Iron Lung".
I always viewed Markiplier in a favorable light - I am a fan of his and I greatly enjoyed his YouTube content. But when he released his "In Space With Markiplier" my opinion shifted into something more. I enjoyed his previous narrative driven videos such as "Who Killed Markiplier" and "A Heist With Markiplier" and "Damien" but something about In Space felt different. Perhaps the story just connected with me more but when I finished watching Space, I held Markiplier as the pinnacle of what could be done with YouTube. Needless to say, I owe a significant amount of inspiration to the man. I firmly believe that his love of this craft is exemplary of what content creation is all about.
So, clearly, I am big fan. When Markiplier first announced his forays into media outside of YouTube (Televisions's "The Edge of Sleep" and now Cinema's "Iron Lung") I was as supportive as I was able to be. Going into "Iron Lung" after spending quite a bit of time anticipating its release (Final Stretch), I was a tad nervous. Knowing the strides Mark takes towards a quality product, I know the movie would at the very least be mediocre, but I never thought it would be terrible.
I am very happy to say that the movie was phenomenal. Let me tell you why in four parts.
The Story
The nature of "Iron Lung" makes talking about the story slightly difficult. I have a Fandom.com tab opened as I write this out and will try to correct any mistakes my memory fails to recall. The movie certainly does an excellent job of drip feeding the viewer more and more information, not in a dissimilar way the game it is based on does.
At some point in humanity's space exploration history (357 EIC / 2349 AD) an event that became known as "The Quiet Rapture" occurred. Planets and stars suddenly vanished - simply poofed from existence without any trace. The only remnants of life as we know it are upon space stations and space craft. As a result, resources decline at a rapid rate - as there are only uninhabitable moons and asteroids that remain.
As is human nature, separate factions formed - two of these being "Eden" (which our main protagonist belongs to) and the Consolidation of Iron (C.O.I. for short. Admittedly, I recall hearing Eden's name during the movie but not C.O.I.'s and certainly didn't realize they were separate peoples- not that it is all that relevant). For unknown reasons (though it seems that their main differences are philosophical ideologies and plans for how humanity should move forward in the wake of the Quiet Rapture.) the two factions are in conflict with each other.
Because of high tensions, there is a nine-day battle between Eden and the space station Filament (under C.O.I. control) that results in Filament being either destroyed or made uninhabitable (the game suggests the station still exists but can't support life).
C.O.I. is ultimately victorious, taking several prisoners. One of these, of course, being our protagonist (played by Markiplier) named Simon. Simon, while repeatedly proclaiming his innocence to the destruction of Filament, undergoes Conviction Realization - a punishment the C.O.I. implements to force convicts to contribute to their society. Simon's contribution is to pilot a submersible called SM-13, also nicknamed "Iron Lung", and explore the seabed of an ocean of blood on a distant moon.
At some point during the Quiet Rapture, oceans of blood mysteriously appeared on several moons. Their origin and reason for existing is a mystery that never gets solved by the end of the movie. All we know is that the C.O.I. takes great interest in one of these blood oceans and wants Simon to explore it, taking pictures with a specialized X-Ray camera. During his exploration, Simon takes a picture of what appears to be a skeleton. With renewed interest in the expedition, those in charge (a woman named Ava -played by Caroline Rose Kaplan- and a man named David -played by Troy Baker-) demand Simon return to the skeleton and retrieve a sample from it - promising that he'll receive his freedom upon return.
And from there more and more horror movie things happen. I won't go into too much more detail concerning the story (mainly because it's hard to find the divergence between game and movie plots, if there really is any). but know that there are many twists and turns the story takes. As is typical in monster movie horror, which "Iron Lung" certainly is, we don't get all the answers. And I honestly wouldn't have it any other way.
Since this is a space movie, it deals with cosmic / Eldritch horror. By nature, that's something that shouldn't ever be explained. I should never know why Cthulhu does what he does because that would take the mysticism and terrifying nature of him away. And we certainly get that here as well. We never learn why the blood oceans exist, why the Quiet Rapture happened, or if humanity will even survive moving forward. Instead, all of our energy and concern is put into the wellbeing of Simon.
I adore the premise of this story. So much of the lore is learned alongside Simon and in a way that keeps the audience wanting to learn the next thing. It's a curious thing, to want to learn everything about what is happening but thinking it's best if I never do. And there is so much potential for more in this universe. The lore from the fandom site stated there are four known blood oceans, giving us plenty of more to explore. The movie, somewhat, ends on a cliffhanger. It would probably be more accurate to say the ending leaves the viewer satisfyingly in the dark while keeping the door open for a possible sequel. But as far as the story of this movie goes, it undoubtedly earns a
10/10
The Acting
I never feel qualified to grade someone's acting. Unless the acting swings drastically either in the awful or awesome direction, the acting mostly goes unnoticed by me. And, perhaps a little bit to the movie's discredit, it is rather distracting watching Markiplier. Knowing who he is as a person and creator makes it akin to watching a family member act in a movie. You can never fully immerse yourself into this character because he'll always be Markiplier. It's a similar issue when an actor gets too big or known too much for a singular role; it's common for an audience member to only view them as their celebrity persona.
While there were moments where I was more critical than immersed in the film, a lot of the time I was viewing the movie from a technical aspect because of it's independent nature, there were also times when I was fully immersed in what was happening. I was instantly bought into the world and the lore that was presented and by around a third of the movie I was able to put away the Markiplier persona and focus solely on Simon as a character. And to Mark's credit, he does act his ass off. There are high emotional scenes that Mark absolutely kills. I imagine a person who isn't as familiar with Markiplier's brand would certainly not have the "issues" I had.
And there certainly are more actors in this film than our main guy. To be transparent, I am not as familiar with some their work as I am with Markiplier's but I would love to give some quick shouts in this section.
Caroline Kaplan as Ava does a fantastic job, especially since we only see her on screen for around ten minutes. The story mostly follows Simon in the submersible, with a shoddy radio connection back to the crew on the surface, so we mostly get something akin to voice acting, rather than on screen presence. Which is not to be taken as a negative. Ava is in charge of this expedition and you can feel a ton of emotion from her. She is angry with Simon, who from her perspective is part of a terrorist group. However, she also understands the gravity of everything happening around her. She knows how terrifying and inhumane it is to send someone into the blood ocean. She recognizes how dire humanity's fate in the universe is. Caroline Kaplan does an excellent job of conveying the sheer desperation and anguish. Very well done.
Troy Baker is a name I recognize from various video games he has voiced in. Troy is a big name in the industry and is kind of a staple for some high-quality projects. Obviously, he kills every role he's ever had. He plays a character by the name of David in this movie, and we honestly don't see or hear much from him. There is a point where he takes over the radio communications, but his involvement is rather limited. Not to say this is necessarily a negative but he does play a rather minor role in the story. Still excellent acting.
Other notable internet celebrities that star in this movie are Ethan Nestor, Sean McLoughlin and Alanah Pearce. All three play minor roles, with Alanah and Ethan's being nondescript voice work. Sean (it feels weird not calling him JackScepticEye) plays a named character, Jack, but I don't believe he has any spoken lines.
Elle Lamont and Elise Lovelock play notable characters that I feel would be a little bit of a spoiler to talk too heavily about. Regardless, they both do a fine job during an intense part of the movie.
And the last bit of work I feel is worth mentioning is David Pettitt as a character named "The Father". He is, I believe, some kind of leader for the people of Eden, who almost appear to be religious as they have the last tree in known existence. He does some incredible narration and really adds to the dreadful vibe the movie exudes.
All in all, the actors did fantastic job. The only real gripe I have is that it was slightly difficult to separate Markiplier from Simon, but that is an issue unique to me. Overall, the acting earns
9/10
The Visuals
The nature of "Iron Lung" forces this movie to take place in a limited location. And this certainly does not harm the film in any way. We are, essentially, stuck on the submarine with Simon the entire film. There are brief moments where we see a few other locations (we got a shot of the last tree on Eden, the docking area where the C.O.I. sent down the sub) but we are stuck in the claustrophobic hunk of metal.
The sub is a great recreation of what we see in the video game. It's all rusted orange with an uncomfortable and unclean feel to it. One of the cooler visual elements of the sub is the X-Ray camera. Whenever activated, we get a brief flash of light before a black and white photograph fades onto a 6-foot-tall screen. The light illuminates the dark sub during certain, darker moments and gives a great unsettling vibe to everything. The photographs the X-Ray camera produces are perfectly unsettling. Seeing the slow fade in of what could possibly be lurking in the darkness does a great job of unnerving the viewer.
A notable thing as well is how good the blood looks. I'm not the biggest fan of gore. I'm certainly not one to shy away from excess gore, I am a fan of the SAW franchise, and I can be very critical of how blood looks in film. When blood looks painfully fake it can really take you out of the experience - such as in SAW 7. "Iron Lung's" blood looks fantastic. There are moments where we see the blood up close and we can see the congelation and it has the correct fluidity.
Some of the space age technology also looks great. We get a similar 80s style future tech that we see in things like Alien. The sub gives such a great mix of technology and industrialized metal. The sub looks great, as it should, considering they put all their effort into this singular set piece. The sub itself is a fully built metal box that they had on a gyro machine, allowing it to spin and rotate freely.
If I was to have a complaint towards the visual, it would be a brief moment of CGI. It doesn't last longer than maybe ten to fifteen seconds, and it looks acceptable. If anything, this could be viewed as a positive thing. The budget for the movie (according to some random source I saw online that may or may not be accurate) was 3 million dollars. Movies have spent far more for CGI artwork and have looked worse. Drawing upon other moments of CGI in Markiplier's previous project (such as "In Space"), it looks a tad... video game esque. It's such a minor complaint and definitely does not harm the film in a drastic way.
Overall, the movie looks great and earns a
9/10
The Audio
I am no audio engineer. The more technical terms and specific ideas of the audio isn't something I have a lot of knowledge about. What I can say is that the sounds were all good as far I could tell.
I'm not usually one to listen to film scores over and over again like some individuals are (with maybe the exception of Lord of the Rings). Especially when it comes to horror films, I can't imagine putting on a soundtrack that is full of unsettling violins and metal scraping noises. That being said, everything sounds great here. My nerves were unsettled and Andrew Hulshult deserves a great deal of praise.
Some of the cooler aspects were mechanical aspects of the sub. There is a proximity sensor that alerts the pilot of how close they are to walls and other obstacles, causing the audience to feel the tension whenever it starts beeping. There are some audio cues as well that alert the pilot to the condition of the submarine (such as low oxygen or a breach in the hull). The creepy sound effects are great and sounds wonderful.
One thing to mention, but also not mention, is there is an audio aspect that greatly adds to the vibe of the movie once you realize it is happening. It is very subtle and I think it is better if you don't know it is happening until you experience it.
One complaint I can have about the audio in the movie is that there are times where it is difficult to hear some of the dialogue. Since Simon is down deep in the ocean, a lot of the conversation he has with the top side crew are through a radio speaker. Since the signal is a bit shoddy, there is a lot of interference and static when the crew talks making it a bit difficult to hear exactly what they are saying. It makes me excited to watch the film with captions on in the future, but it does hurt the film slightly. I don't think any of the story was ultimately lost by this, but I do feel like I missed out on certain moments just because it was hard to hear what they were saying. Still, with that all said, I believe the audio gets a
9/10
The Final Tally
"Iron Lung" is an excellent film, especially for the small-scale team that created it. I love this movie. Everything works so well and it's so impressive what could be possible when a singular vision is worked towards with such passion and love. You can feel that passion every second you are watching this movie and it leaves you wanting more in a great way. I would love to see the lore expanded upon and see what other eldritch horrors could lurk out in the universe.
All in all - you should go watch "Iron Lung". It's a great time and earns an overall rating of
9/10
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