THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS.
There’s a war on. A bitter war – between Markiplier’s die-hard fans, and the very concept of the film critic. If you brave Reddit you will see countless posts discussing critical reactions to Iron Lung, particularly the discrepancy between the Rotten Tomatoes’ critic vs audience score (50% vs 89% at time of writing). Despite many critics being generally complimentary of Markiplier’s passion and ability to get this film made, whilst offering important criticism for him to take forward, you would think that they had personally spat on the fans. On the other hand, there are definitely reviews that are childishly dismissive of Mark as a YouTuber; why can’t we separate this from his online career and call him what he is: an artist? Yes, Iron Lung may be the culmination of a decade-and-a-half long online career – there’s no way this film could have been made and released on this scale without Markiplier’s popularity, hard work and connections from 13 years of YouTube. But to dismiss this as a “YouTuber film” is wholly reductive. No, it’s not perfect. But there’s plenty of promise that Mark can take forward should he choose to expand on his filmmaking career.
Markiplier played David Szymanski’s short submarine horror 3 years ago, and evidently it stuck with him, as he dedicated the next 3 years to self-financing, writing, producing, directing, starring in and editing this picture. The film and game share the same premise: after a catastrophic cosmic event – known as the Quiet Rapture – causes all stars and planets to disappear, scientists are forced to hunt dead moons for signs of life. On one moon is an ocean of blood (an excellent location setup if there ever was one. The protagonist, initially known only as Convict (Markiplier), must descend into the blood ocean in an untested submarine, searching for… who knows what exactly. Convict has been promised his freedom if he makes the trip – I’ll let you guess whether the powers that be are going to keep their end of the bargain.
The Blood Ocean: a new holiday destination for all the family!
The game is short – only 30-45 minutes – and features, frankly, very little to do other than manoeuvre your sub, take grainy x-ray photos, and build up suspense until the climax. With the film clocking in at over 2 hours I was anticipating how the game would be expanded to 3 times its length, but also a little concerned about the pacing. Surprisingly I didn’t mind the runtime as much as most critics, but it would undoubtedly be tighter if there had been a harder limit (really this should be 100 mins max). This is a slow-burn horror, and whilst Markiplier does a good job at building tension, the first hour could probably have been condensed by half and got the same point across.
The film picks up in the second half as it turns towards cosmic horror and embraces its philosophical premise, although the results are somewhat mixed. Unfortunately the greatest weakness here is the screenplay, which definitely falls into some amateur pitfalls: overuse of swearing to appear “serious”; making the character excessively angry at all times; and honestly just not quite knowing how to condense its ideas. The game opens with a text screen that conveys the story background clearly, then leaves the rest of the lore for the player to piece together. The film, on the other hand, drip-feeds information about the Quiet Rapture more steadily. This makes sense for an expanded runtime, but it never feels like it goes into enough detail for the audience to truly get a grasp on what exactly is going on. Mark’s character, eventually named as Simon, is equally elusive. We know he is a criminal, responsible – to some degree – for the destruction of “Filament Station”. But what exactly he did, how responsible he was, and what impact it had overall is agonisingly missing from the script. There are hints at a backstory – we see Simon as a child in one brief flashback – but this is dropped immediately and feels more like an obligation than actual character-building. As the film morphs into a question of survival vs heroism, with Simon wrestling over whether to sacrifice himself in the hope of saving the universe, we don’t have a clear enough picture of who he is to understand why he would – or wouldn’t – make that choice. Markiplier’s acting is serviceable but I feel like it could have benefitted from a professional lead; a lot of his screentime is taken up shouting profanities. He’s a watchable presence, but he lacks the nuance to bring complexity to an already underwritten role.
The surreal climax is welcome, but I can’t say I knew exactly what was going on. After discovering the wreck of another abandoned sub, Simon starts to hear a voice over his radio, enticing him towards a mysterious light that promises to keep him safe. It is unclear if this is a cosmic occurrence or simply a hallucination due to oxygen deficiency, which does create an interesting atmosphere. As the film draws to its conclusion, Simon begins to mutate as his body is overtaken by bubbling pustules and alien growths. The makeup is genuinely incredible and gnarly, and shows that the strongest elements of this film are in the craft. The set and costumes are pitch-perfect; the sub feels welded shut, a shadowy coffin occasionally lit by the harsh flash of the x-ray photos (these are achieved in a much creepier fashion than the game, so points for atmosphere). The production design in general is stellar, and it really ramps up at the climax as the sub floods with gallons of delicious, goopy blood. Markiplier allegedly wanted to rival Evil Dead (2013) and he definitely achieved that. I will respect anyone willing to splash around in an actual swimming pool of blood in the name of art! Honestly, there is so much to be admired here, and it is a testament that Mark clearly put together a talented, passionate team. He went balls-to-the-wall, and I am genuinely so appreciative of that fact.
Let’s get goopy!
Despite the long runtime, however, I still think the ending was frustratingly abrupt. I was literally shocked when the credits rolled; yes, it’s fun to end on a “big action” moment, but I was expecting a coda to at least suggest (without over-explaining) whether there was any glimmer of hope or success in Simon’s mission. God knows I love an ambiguous ending (when done well!) but the film seemed to zoom in so much on Simon that it forgot there was any plot outside of his character choices, and instead of ending on a mysterious note, it just feels incomplete. The game gets away with this because it’s so barebones in the first place and doesn’t attempt to up the stakes to universal proportions; the film, on the other hand, literally makes this a matter of saving humanity, so it feels odd that this is just pushed to the side and never mentioned again.
Overall there is much to appreciate here, and I genuinely think Markiplier deserves his flowers for managing to get this made. It’s a crazy project and only he could pull it off to this scale. The film has already made back about 6x its production budgets of $3 million, and the fans seem extremely pleased with how it turned out. But perhaps there is a lesson of caution for both fans and critics alike. Mark himself seems to be taking criticism in his stride, promising to utilise it in the future, which is a good thing; the fans don’t need to defend him, especially when most of the reviews are not slanderous. But there is also a pervasively smug sense in some criticism that this film is “beneath” the reviewer because of Markiplier’s career up to this point. We are in an age where YouTubers are transitioning to feature filmmaking – the Philippou brothers most successfully, Chris Stuckmann, now Markiplier – and I think the critics would do well to remember that these directors are still artists and should not be belittled because they didn’t come into the industry through traditional methods (e.g. being a nepo baby or going to Eton). No-one is calling Sorry, Baby a vanity project because Eva Victor wrote, directed and starred in it – so why is this characterisation being applied to Iron Lung? Whilst watching I saw an imperfect film, but one oozing (literally) with Markiplier’s passion – for the game, for the fans, and for expanding and evolving his career. He’s always been a progenitor of online culture, doing more than just making Let’s Plays, which is exactly why he has 38 million subscribers. So maybe we, as fans, can accept that a little bit of criticism never hurt anyone; and the critics can accept that art created by certain people is not inherently less valuable.
Support indie films. Or a giant fish is gonna come eat you.
Director: Markiplier
Cast: Markiplier, Caroline Rose Kaplan, Troy Baker
Runtime: 125m
Certificate: 15
Country: USA
Images: Markiplier Studios, David Szymanski