How far would you go for the chance to survive? How long? How deep? And would you do it in the tiniest, grossest submarine known to man?
Mark Fischbach — better known by his online alias and YouTube handle “Markiplier” — asks these questions in his film “Iron Lung.” The film is based on a game by the same title that Fischbach played on his Youtube channel in 2023.
“Iron Lung” takes place in a post-apocalyptic world after the “Quiet Rapture,” wherein all stars and planets suddenly disappear leaving only humans who inhabited space ships. The story follows Simon, a prisoner of an organization called the Consolidation of Iron, arrested after his involvement in destroying one of the remaining space ships. The COI discovers a strange moon made entirely of an ocean of blood, which they tell Simon to survey and search for resources in a rickety submarine in exchange for his freedom.
The submarine is equipped with an X-ray camera, allowing Simon to see only what is immediately in front of the submarine. Despite his limited vision, Simon, quickly discovers that he is not alone on the blood-caked moon for his tiny vessel is being hunted by an enormous sea monster.
“Iron Lung” is a technical masterpiece. The film uses largely practical effects, breaking the world record for the most fake blood used on a film set, according to the BBC.The filmmakers also built the submarine set so that it could really move and jostle. When the audience sees Simon getting thrown around in his submarine by the tides or the monsters, the set actually moves.
The sound design is also extraordinary, blending otherworldly ambience with the very real tension of being in a rapidly deteriorating environment.
“Iron Lung” is not a second screen movie one might put on as white noise while they do something else. One look away and you might miss something important. It’s incredibly satisfying to see an artist who cut his teeth on YouTube videogame Let’s Play footage — a platform and genre practically designed to be a second screen — boldly demand and deserve an audiences’ undivided attention.
Fischbach gets to the heart of what makes elements like giant eldritch sea monsters, the vastness of the ocean and the unending depths of space so frightening. It’s not about how big it is, it’s about how small you are. One repeated line and slogan of the COI is, “This is bigger than us.” Even the snappy inspirational slogan that the COI uses to try to inspire themselves and Simon ties into the horror of hugeness that underpins all of “Iron Lung.”
What scares us is not that something is big, but that it’s bigger than us. Innately, we want to believe that we are valuable, that our lives mean something. The thought of being barely a blip on a radar goes against our feelings of fairness and world-order. It creates a feeling of “wrongness” and unease. The thought of being consumed, be it by a creature or a cause, is terrifying. The biggest difference between the COI and the creature in the ocean is that the COI chews Simon up and spits him back out, while the creature just chews him up.
The thing I liked most was how the film grapples with the themes of hope and survival. It presents a strange conflict between the crushing weight of hope and the freedom of abject despair. It shows how predatory and exploitative groups and entities prey on hope more than anything else. Most obviously, the monster in the depths of the blood ocean functions like an angler fish. It has some uncanny light that draws in the submarine pilots and it also mimics the voices of previous victims, using the promises of rescue or camaraderie to lure in more prey.
It’s not just the fish, though. The COI also weaponizes hope, using it to goad Simon into going deeper and deeper. They promise him freedom if he just goes down one more time; they promise to rescue him from the depths if he can get one more thing. They dangle a better life in front of him, just like an anglerfish’s light. It works every time.
I don’t want to paint this film as some nihilistic exercise in misery that advocates against the act of hoping. In fact, it’s the opposite. “Iron Lung” shows that, as dangerous as hope can be, it’s also essential and inevitable.
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Simon repeatedly wants to give up, declaring that nothing matters and accepting his fate, but at every opportunity, he still fights. Even the COI isn’t immune to hope; they’re willing to risk humanity’s limited resources to build these ships to search for resources and answers that could help them survive. Despite the fact that literally all of the light in the universe is slowly disappearing because the stars have died, people still have hope.
Birds got to eat, fish got to swim and man has to go on hoping for a brighter tomorrow, against all odds. What makes “Iron Lung” work is that I hoped along with him.
The final image of the film is a gory, but hopeful one. Simon’s life vest, complete with a built-in flashlight, floats on the surface of the blood ocean, supporting the black box with information that could help what’s left of humanity. It’s not a promise of salvation, it’s just a little bit of ghost light and a chance that things could be better. But it’s worth it, it’s all we’re left with.
Addison Fulton is the culture editor for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at culture@dailylobo.com or on X @dailylobo
