By Jackson TOYON

It’s May 2022 and Mark Fishbach, known professionally as goliath YouTube star “Markiplier,” just finished playing an indie horror game for his audience called Iron Lung. Enamored with and inspired by the game’s mostly hidden story, he decided the wider world deserved to know about it and reached out to the game’s creator David Szymanski. The result of that collaboration is an inspirational tale of independent filmmaking on a self-financed budget of merely $4 million – written, directed, edited, and even headlined by Fishbach himself with no major studios, producers or distributors attached to this cosmic horror narrative that is mysterious as it is unsettling.

In a distant future where humanity has colonized space, an uncanny and inexplicable apocalyptic event known by survivors as The Quiet Rapture caused every star and habitable planet to suddenly vanish, taking all inhabitants with them. Only those aboard starships and space stations remain, many uniting under the “Consolidation of Iron” with a sole directive: secure humanity’s survival. On the desolate moon AT-5, the Consolidation has discovered something impossible – a literal ocean of blood, which they believe may hold resources vital to sustaining human life. 

Simon (Mark Fishbach), a convict accused of destroying a space station, wakes up sealed inside the cramped hull of a small, rusty submarine as it begins its descent into the blood. He has been tasked by his radio overseer Ava (Caroline Rose Kaplan) to navigate its depths and confirm the existence of the resources, his freedom promised him if he completes the mission. The blood is too thick to see through and, since the sub’s lone porthole must remain closed to withstand the immense pressure, Simon’s only way to understand his surroundings is by taking an occasional grainy image with the craft’s specially made camera. As he delves deeper, he questions whether he is truly alone.

One of the film’s most impressive qualities is how technically and visually strong it is for its budget and scale. It’s quite a feat to find interesting visuals and camera angles when the entire film takes place inside a dark tube that can’t be any larger than 15 feet long by 8 feet tall, but the camerawork and lighting of cinematographer Philip Roy meet that challenge admirably and the practical effects are convincingly grimy. Excellent sound design leaves everything outside of the submarine up to the viewer’s fears to imagine. It allows the claustrophobic environment to feel less like a budgetary restraint and more like a creative choice.

The film does drag slightly in parts and could have its runtime trimmed by 10-15 minutes, especially in the second act, but cosmic horror is a genre where giving audiences a slow burn works well. The dialogue and acting from Fishbach are a little stiff for the first 20-30 minutes but to his credit they continuously improve as the movie goes on. The film was shot sequentially and you can see that progression in how Fishbach’s performance grows more confident and natural. Much of this is forgivable because of how the film never feels like a vanity project – there are no winks to Markiplier fans or obnoxious game references to make the audience smirk – it’s just an exceedingly earnest adaptation of the source material.

The shining quality of “Iron Lung” is how much it implies but does not directly tell the audience, instead leaving audience members to wonder about the implications. The entire plot is set in this small space but the real interest lies outside of it in trying to imagine what life and the universe is like after The Quiet Rapture beyond Simon’s singular existence. While the film is about as flawed as one would reasonably expect, it’s also as impressive as one could hope. It makes the absolute most out of its budget and is extremely faithful to the story on which it was based. 

Any way it’s sliced, “Iron Lung” is a true passion project through and through. For those who enjoy an interesting premise or want to support independent filmmaking then this is certainly one to look at. 

Rated R.