Disclaimer: This review contains spoilers for the movie Iron Lung.

My lungs were far from out of breath from screaming in the theater. Despite Iron Lung being a horror movie, I wouldn’t say I was necessarily terrified. However, this movie has a lot more depth than most viewers have been able to appreciate. With a current Rotten Tomatoes score of 59%, I expected to rate this movie terribly. I think that there’s a lot more than what’s on the surface.

Iron Lung was released on Jan. 30th, and it was produced, directed, and written by the famous YouTuber Markiplier (Mark Edward Fischbach). As his first movie release, this film attracted viewers of Markiplier’s channel and players of the video game Iron Lung, along with a few who were watching unfamiliar with every aspect.

As mentioned before, Iron Lung is based on a popular video game that Markiplier played on his YouTube channel three years ago. He documented and announced his filming process as well on the same channel, so expectations grew quickly. The question is, is this a misunderstood film or genuinely a flop?

It was an interesting setting walking into Iron Lung. The screen opened up to Simon (Markiplier) staying in a submarine. It’s explained that he is currently on a blood moon, something the government wants to discover after the “Quiet Rapture” destroyed every other planet and star. The goal of the search is to find a land where humans can live.

The entirety of the movie is on this submarine, except for a couple of scenes, only a few minutes long, that are flashbacks or hallucinations. I do think this was intentional by Markiplier, even though many people failed to see this filming standpoint. Keeping you in a small submarine that slowly feels more and more suffocating because of the amount of items thrown around and blood seeping in adds to the effect. The claustrophobic nature of the scenes definitely alludes to the chaos of being in no control, as creatures and the government decide Simon’s fate.

The close-up scenes of blood from the blood ocean were cool at first, but they slowly became less intense as they were used. I’ll give Markiplier credit, as the intention was there and worked initially, but it started to fail after a while.

The blood ocean was as disgusting as it was terrifying. You can tell from the maybe 20-second-long scene that the production clearly put a ton of effort into making it identical to the video game version without using any special effects. To think of what it’d be like to swim in actual blood did make me a little bit sick, though.

The last atmospheric part to mention would be the one time in the entire movie that Simon rises to the top of the ocean. The team of government officials looking over him brought him up for just a couple of minutes after he completed his first task. The director behind the operation, Ava (Caroline Kaplan), peers through the submarine window while talking to Simon. Simon begs her to let him out of there, while Ava stands outside repetitively wiping the blood that drips down the window. You can truly sense the genuine fear in this scene, as you can tell from here on out that Simon would not be escaping. By keeping the camera trapped inside with Simon even during this scene, giving him and us no other view of the outside world, only added to the claustrophobic feeling. I believe that this was intentional by the team creating it.

How many times does this guy have to grunt? I felt like I was back watching The Housemaid all over again; it was terrible.

The writing of the script in Iron Lung is far from good. This is one of the only times, in my opinion, that you can tell it was written, directed, and acted by the same person. The lines aren’t creative, nor do they add anything to the actual plot, as most of the time it’s Markiplier.

As I watched the movie in theaters, every single time Simon would swear, I would pre-fire, “Oh, here he goes; he’s gonna grunt!” The lines felt so predictable. I understand that maybe Markiplier wanted to give it a more relatable script, as anyone stuck in a blood ocean inside a submarine would probably be swearing and freaking out, but it was more than a little overkill.

Another issue that doesn’t necessarily pertain to the script but more so the movie in general was that the speaker, which Ava would talk over, was so hard to hear due to the static the directors put in the background of it. Most of her lines weren’t memorable, as most of the time she’d just be screaming in the background, offering absolutely nothing. 

I do know that this is something Markiplier himself addressed, mentioning that certain theaters had the incorrect settings, making it harder to hear Ava’s voice, but I think this was an issue that could’ve been solved if Markiplier just made the speaker volume in the actual film higher. Both my friend and I were super confused since his missions would be explained over the speaker and then not heard by us, so we were guessing what was going to happen half the time.

Iron Lung did not have many characters in it. Simon had, obviously, the most screen time by far, but no one else was really shown anyway. This means that the movie also relied on Markiplier to step up his acting, which was very 50/50.

Take into consideration, this was his first time acting in an official film. He had done previous YouTube projects and small background roles, but he had never starred in anything big. I think for the first time, he was fine, but he has a lot to improve on.

Part of this has to do with the fact that the script was so terrible and didn’t help him out in any way, as there was nothing too creative to deliver. He did an okay job showing the anxieties and regret of his character, but it was more the slight flashbacks that gave into this idea.

There was one line that really stuck with me, where Simon says, “I just wanna live. Is that so wrong?” His delivery of this line genuinely gave me goosebumps, and I think he has major potential, but the rest of what he was given didn’t show that off. 

I also think half the reason I was so torn on the acting was the fact that I couldn’t see out of his YouTube persona. The problem with such a popular creator starring in a film is that you have to transport yourself into a world where you can see outside of their actual self. Actors like Adam Sandler do this amazingly, playing almost any role given to them to a T, but Markiplier was the opposite. You can see so much of his normal self that it breaks away from the character’s actual personality. It felt like I was watching one of his YouTube videos. It was the equivalent of seeing TikTok acting compared to actual acting. There is a major difference: one feels incredibly fake, and one feels real.

Do I believe he was the worst person the creators could’ve picked for this role? No. He had some good delivery, but he has a long way to go. I’m interested to see what his future endeavors could hold—if he could break away from his YouTuber acting persona, he could really be outstanding.

Iron Lung is labeled as a psychological horror movie. Except, this does sadly remain a film that didn’t terrify me in the slightest.

My friend recommended it to me, as someone who was a huge fan of Markplier and thought it had a lot of incredibly scary parts. Since I had the expectation that I would be terrified, I expected some sort of jump scare or sickening scene. Were any of these expectations held? Nope.

In the submarine, there’s an X-ray-controlled camera, one of the only ways to see outside because of the thickness of the water in the ocean. When pressing this button, the viewer sees Simon—a lot of the time—looking at a white and black image of some otherworldly creature with sharp teeth and huge eyes. Every single time, he’d step back, peer at the image seemingly questioning his life decisions, and then we’d just move on.

The scenes would’ve been a thousand times more terrifying if they weren’t constantly overused. The movie heavily relied on these images to deliver the actual horror, which, on one hand, was okay because it added to the instability factor, but on the other hand, made each one less and less scary. Not only that, but barely anything happened when he did see these creatures. They wouldn’t attack; they’d just move on.

After this is when the plot starts to actually develop, with a person, seemingly Ava, but not, who comes over the speaker and talks to Simon. This is when he has lost contact with the government above, so at first the viewer thinks it’s his help, and then they realize he has actually been tricked. When the voice starts to amp up in anger, I have to say, it did start to unnerve me. The voice actor for this role, Elle LaMont, did a great job of portraying a damsel in distress turned evil. The usage of Simon’s past grief to manipulate him was a smart move by the directors and, overall, was the part of the movie I could respect the most. It’s also when we realize that Simon has no chance to actually live. The combination of all of these factors in such a short amount of time gave uncertainty to the viewer about what was going to happen. I loved this arc of the movie, and after researching more about the video game Iron Lung, all of it came to make a lot of sense to me.

The last truthfully horrifying scene was when Simon was dragged up to the surface of the blood ocean, in no submarine, in front of a huge monster facing him. This is when I started to understand how the movie had surpassed the previous record for most gallons of blood used in a film. This scene, though only spanning a few seconds, was genuinely terrifying. Even though I think that mass amounts of blood can be a lazy way for movies to add the horror aspect, this film did it right.

Iron Lung wasn’t the scariest thing I’ve seen in my life, but it had its moments. The Housemaid did jump scare me more, though, so take that how you will.

I think partially one of the reasons Iron Lung was rated so low was because it wasn’t supposed to be your typical horror movie. It has a backstory, as it’s based on a video game, which means that it makes a lot more sense if you watched some sort of play-through beforehand.

The video game explains much more in terms of the technicalities, such as why we’re even searching the blood ocean, and how the convict, Simon, got to the point where he is.

The world they’re in currently is set in the future, where space travel has occurred to other planets. Humans from Earth had traveled to Mars and even further, looking for a new home as Earth slowly began to fall apart due to reasons not specifically explained. As an inference, it’s probably due to the effect of climate change or some other source of humans destroying the planet.

The first major lore point is the event of the “Quiet Rapture.” During this event, with no prior warning, every single star and planet disappeared, leaving only the blood moons to roam. 

There are two space stations specifically named, Eden and Filament Station, which are a part of a conglomerate known as the Consolidation of Iron (COI). These space stations are some of the only ones existing after the Quiet Rapture. Eden also has some of the last remaining trees in the entire universe, making them extremely powerful.

The COI is a seemingly democratic station, where citizens vote on what missions and decisions they go through with. Eden is the opposite. There is a belief that these stations correlate to the Cold War, with the COI representing America and Eden representing the Soviet Union. Though there is no genuine reason to fear Eden yet, the COI secretly builds up forces in case of an attack from Eden.

After the Quiet Rapture, the COI found the blood moons where the mission that Simon goes on takes place. In the video game, there is never a reveal, or so I believe, of the convict’s actual name. Though in the movie, Simon’s backstory and name are revealed. This leads me to believe that the movie’s purpose is to explain more about the in-game character that wasn’t in the video game.

The blood moons are not Earth’s moons nor had they existed beforehand, meaning that they were created in the events of the Quiet Rapture. During the movie’s events, it’s believed that the monsters living in these blood oceans were the sole reason for the Quiet Rapture. Their motives are unknown, but what is known is that they despise the human race.

Another aspect not heavily detailed by the movie is the other submarine, SM-8, that is found when Simon searches in the blood ocean. This submarine was also sent into the blood ocean, but its team was made up of scientists rather than random criminals. Ava, later, when discovering that Simon has found this submarine, is motivated to find it, but there is no hope.

To me, the importance of the first submarine was to show that Simon had no chance of getting out. I think that it ups the ante for the viewer and makes Simon start to finally question his life. Simon finally loses all hope once he realizes that he is not getting out, which is where the turning point of the movie begins. Once this realization is made, Simon’s actions become more reckless but more important. 

The ending, which is left up to interpretation, leads many to think that Simon, along with the submarine, was blown up. By this, though, the submarine destroys the monster as well, ending all the pain that people have gone through because of it. Simon’s loss of hope in his life was the only reason he finally decided to sacrifice himself, which is for the betterment of mankind.

The Iron Lung lore has so much more than what the average person sees. There are also many similarities to the Revelation and other Christian events, which are interesting to compare the game and movie to. If you’d like an even more in-depth lore background, YouTube has an especially good one listed here.

The biggest issue, by far, was the lack of context that many first-time viewers of the film had. The background, as previously explained, is incredible but also extremely complicated.

When going to the theaters with my friend and parents, all of us were left confused. The plot was not clear at all, with little to no explanations of what the Quiet Rapture was or why they were even doing the mission to begin with. Because of this, it left the movie with a 59% on Rotten Tomatoes and a terrible representation. 

This movie had so much potential to explain the ins and outs of everything. It simply didn’t. I’ve seen so many reviews online saying the same exact thing over and over again: the story was unclear and confusing. Rather, that was because the narration, as said before, was hard to hear, or the fact that Simon would do steps to mission unrevealed to the audience. I think with just a little more depth and a little more background, the score of this movie could’ve shot up tremendously. It was simply too big a storyline to expect first-time viewers to understand completely. The goal of the movie is for you to believe you’ve learned something or seen something impressive, and most people were confused by it thirty minutes in. That is the true problem of this film.

After watching some extensive lore videos, more things are beginning to make sense. I can see the connections between the video game and movie more clearly, and I understand a lot more than I previously did. However, I don’t think that this extensive research should have to be conducted for me to begin to understand what is going on.

The thing that left me truly conflicted about it all was that Markiplier put a ton of effort into this. There is some level of respect that I will always hold. He clearly put a ton of effort into this film for his fans, and you can tell that by how he’s reacted to how well it’s done in theaters in terms of sales.

Something to consider is that all of the movie’s funding was out of his own pocket. The $3 million he used to create the movie was all from Markiplier himself. That makes me a lot more considerate of the movie. He had good intentions, and I think that the film wasn’t terrible for his first time. I think that viewers, too, need to consider these factors when making their own reviews, as Markiplier clearly did care about Iron Lung.

With a couple of tweaks and more explanation, I do believe it would’ve received higher ratings. Let it be known that it was completely self-funded and his first time creating a movie, and I think people shouldn’t be as harsh. 

He’s an amazing creator, and I don’t think Iron Lung takes away from that. It’s evident that he tried his absolute best. It’s admirable to have a creator who is not greedy like many have become, which makes my review a little bit higher.

Iron Lung isn’t the worst horror movie of them all; I don’t believe this movie was a complete flop. It had its potential, and though I believe it failed in some areas, it’s clear that Markiplier as a director will improve and create even better films to come.