Veronica Couchman/The Mossy Log
A few months after the indie game developer David Szymanski released “Iron Lung,” Mark Fischbach — approached Szymanski with the idea of making the game into a feature-length film. The YouTuber was enamored with the horror game’s world and mysterious atmosphere when he played it in a video uploaded to his channel in 2022. He envisioned it as a project revolving around himself as the lead actor and also worked as the film’s director, editor, screenwriter, producer and executive producer.
While Iron Lung is Fischbach’s first film released theatrically, it is not his first foray into filmmaking. He wrote and directed the YouTube Originals “A Heist With Markiplier” (2019) and “In Space With Markiplier” (2022), as well as the documentary “Markiplier From North Korea” (2022). He has also acted in and edited his own YouTube content, amassing more than 38 million subscribers in 13 years.
Without a distributor, Fischbach originally planned a limited American release to 50 to 100 independent theaters and after contacting Centurion Film Service to handle booking, that number jumped to 600 theaters. However, it was only after Fischbach’s fans got involved that a widespread theatrical release came to fruition. The YouTuber’s audience requested their local theaters to show the film en masse, to the point of establishments’ annoyance. This campaign was successful in getting theaters to play the film, including major cinema chains like Cinemark, Regal Cinemas and AMC.
3,000 theatres in the United States and to over 1,000 more internationally. This wide release is a testament to the power of digital fandom culture and the lengths that fans of a creator will go to help them succeed.
While I find the production and distribution of “Iron Lung” riveting, I find the film itself to be a mixed bag. The film follows Simon, a convict sealed into the eponymous Iron Lung submarine and then forced to explore an ocean of blood in search of a precious resource to save humanity. Stuck in this undersea coffin, Simon struggles to maintain his grip on reality as he realizes the sinister nature of his environment and his mental state worsens.
The film is held back by two major issues. The first is its audio mixing, which is awful. It is incredibly difficult to understand any dialogue, even when Simon is talking to himself. The poor sound mixing also hurts the film’s score, composed by Andrew Hulshult. Even in a silent Regal Cinemas theater, hearing Hulshult’s suspenseful ambient score is a challenge. When the score is not reduced to a whisper, it is overbearingly loud, to the point that in some scenes, the primary emotion I felt was not suspense or horror, but annoyance at the score’s volume.
The second major issue is the writing. The film lays out interesting ideas regarding criminal punishment, isolation and sacrifice, but they are underdeveloped to the point that it is hard to argue the film says anything at all. A lot of potential was left in the dirt in favor of bland science fiction lore, much of which is not even audible most of the time. I am not one for lore in films. I am far more interested in the themes of a film and what emotions it produces in me; that is why I watch movies. I found it difficult to get into “Iron Lung” for this reason. When I walked out of the theater, I asked myself “What did that movie tell me?” and the answer was confidently “Nothing.”
That being said, the film has some qualities so good that I would still recommend it. One of them is Fischbach’s performance as Simon. Fischbach perfectly communicates the toll monotony takes on Simon and his slow but intense mental decline because of it. It is an incredibly engaging performance. The film is also visually engaging. Both its practical and digital effects are delightfully grisly and gross. The production design and cinematography makes the Iron Lung feel organic, like a rotting corpse that is constantly revealing new parts of itself to Simon as it decays.
Although I previously mentioned issues with the film’s sound, I must say that the sound design is incredible. As the sub slowly falls apart, every creak the hull makes causes alarm, and even a single drop of blood seeping in feels monumentals. When this haunting sound design works in conjunction with the aforementioned visuals, the film has a sickly atmosphere that is intoxicating. In the moments that “Iron Lung” revels in this atmosphere and allows the audience to simply watch Simon and his oceanic death trap rot, it is incredibly compelling.
It saddens me that the film hardly ever gets the opportunity to reach its full potential due to the major issues I mentioned. Still, I found its best qualities made it a decently enjoyable watch, and would recommend others give it a shot, even if I will not be diving back into “Iron Lung” anytime soon.
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