Iron Lung

Description

Iron Lung is a sci-fi horror film from YouTuber Mark Fischbach (Markiplier). He stepped into three roles here: director, editor, and lead actor. And with a $3 million budget, he managed to make a genuinely decent movie for true lovers of independent cinema. Unlike some “professional” directors and studios that have been churning out unwatchable garbage for decades.

Mark’s YouTube channel is mostly dedicated to niche, obscure indie horror games. One day, he recorded a playthrough of Iron Lung, a game that’s a cult hit in very specific circles. And now, he has adapted it into the film Iron Lung.

The game is so niche that I, even as an enthusiast (and lately, more of a collector of such atmospheric games), knew nothing about it until this film was released.

A post-apocalyptic world, you, a cramped submarine, and a sea of blood. And this is not a metaphor: you are literally exploring the depths of a bloody ocean. And it’s not some Earth-bound sea filled with the blood of human victims, as you might think. Humanity has long since left the Solar System. Does this sound like madness to you? To me, it sounds like a brilliant idea.

I haven’t played the game yet, but I have watched the film, and here is my subjective opinion: the movie is incredibly niche, and the chances of you liking it are as slim as the amount of air in that very mini-submarine exploring the bottom of the bloody sea.

But it would be a mistake to compare Iron Lung not just to major studio films, but even to projects from independent studios. The film is a 100% auteur project and, to some extent, a direct reflection of the very indie horrors the director plays.

Iron Lung captures all that gloomy atmosphere of hopelessness, rust, and surrealism found in low-budget indie horror games, often made by a single person or a tiny team of enthusiasts, where everything is held together by a core idea and the desire to create. To create not for money, but for art and the realization of ideas.

The film is so niche that not a single studio or production company involved in the making of Iron Lung is mentioned in the opening credits. Now remember those times when you got comfortable, turned off the lights, grabbed a bowl of snacks, started a movie, and were forced to watch two minutes of production company logos.

I remember how brilliantly this was parodied in Family Guy. Peter goes to the movie theater, the film starts, and here’s what happens: they show a running horse, and Peter says, “Oh, a horse! The movie must be about a horse.” Then they show the next logo: an artist painting a picture. Peter: “Oh, the movie must be about an artist.” Then they show an animated logo with a lighthouse. Peter: “Oh, a lighthouse! The events of the movie must take place at a lighthouse…” You get the idea. True story.

Let’s return to the moon where we discovered a sea of blood and the skeletons of some creatures—that is, back to Iron Lung. Where, in the cast alongside Mark Fischbach, you can hear and briefly see Troy Baker, a legendary figure and probably the most famous voice in the gaming world. For instance, in the original game, he is the voice of Joel in The Last of Us (in the HBO series, he only had a tiny cameo, while the role of Joel, as you know, went to Pedro Pascal).

You can also see and hear Baker in Death Stranding 2 (if you play with the English voiceover). He plays some crazy dude with a battle guitar (I haven’t finished the second game yet, so I don’t know who this strange antagonist is).

Yes, Hideo Kojima came up with the battle guitar. But considering the first game had feces grenades, a battle guitar doesn’t seem like such a crazy idea anymore.

If you’ve never played video games, you’re probably thinking: “What kind of madness am I reading?” And if you’re wildly curious (or not curious yet), let’s start small. Just start playing Detroit: Become Human—a masterpiece that will make you cry and deeply regret not discovering it sooner. It will open up a whole new amazing world of interactive cinema. You can play through these games multiple times, make different choices, and see their consequences. Unlike traditional movies, here you have a choice: where to go, what to say, and how to make fateful decisions that determine the ending of your adventure.

Let Detroit: Become Human be your first quest. And then, maybe, someday, you will make your way to the game Iron Lung.