Alone in a world with only some survivors. Being forced to search an ocean of blood not knowing if you’ll survive and come out or die in the bloody sea. “Iron Lung” showcases the fear and confusion of someone in this exact situation.
-Game and movie spoilers-
The original submarine simulation game came out in 2022 developed and published by David Szymanski. In the game, you play as an unnamed convict who was sent to explore a blood ocean that is on a desolate moon in a submarine named the “Iron Lung”, hence the name of the game.
This all takes place after something called the “Quiet Rapture” where all known stars and planets had disappeared, with only people on barren moons and space stations still living. They are searching for any natural resources in their universe of barren moons. They send convicts to explore these places, most notably an ocean of blood, there are four known ones in this universe.
While the mission is basically a guaranteed death due to the submarine not being built to withstand the depth. You are welded inside and have no window to view the outside. You aren’t trained for this mission. If you survive this mission, which you won’t, you earn your freedom. When you are sunken into the depths, you begin to lose communication, causing you to be alone and stranded.
In the game, you are able to move the submarine around and take pictures of the marked points of interest. You have to pay attention to your coordinates and the map since you cannot see where you are going. There are also proximity indicators for when you are getting near an obstacle. Your location does not change throughout the game, you are only within the submarine and do not come back up. The camera you use is an x-ray camera – meaning that if you see bones, it’s not really bones. While there are not too many high action moments in the game, it still captures attention.
There is little to no dialogue in it, as you lose connection with the people in charge. In the end, the submarine begins to get filled with blood as you search for your next point of interest. Once you have found it, you get killed by the beast of the depths that has been hunting you all along. There’s no way to win. There’s no way to survive.
The psychological torture, isolation, and minimalist design made it appealing to many audiences. It mainly exploded because of the success of the indie horror genre and many YouTube playthroughs. It relies on sensory deprivation and the claustrophobic environment to higher the tension. You rely on delayed sonar images to see your way around the blood ocean, making most of the horror up to your own imagination.
While the game is barely an hour long to playthrough, it was adapted into a nearly two hour film. It was directed by YouTube star Markiplier while also being the main star in it. The movie follows the same storyline, with a few minor changes.
They had to add a few things to draw out the story. They gave the convict a name and a backstory. Simon, the convict, is given a violent but sad backstory. He is a past member of the Eden Cult and was nicknamed “The Butcher” for his role in the destruction of The Filament Station, a space station, that caused the death of 62 people. His cult was created after the eternal darkness had taken over the world. His name had come from how much more blood he had on his hands than the people around him. Though we find out that he wasn’t single handedly the one to blame, he was the only one convicted of the crime. Simon is deeply traumatized by his actions and we can see him struggle with his guilt throughout the movie, adding to the psychological factors. He is trapped alone, promised his freedom if he is able to succeed in a mission that has never worked before. Simon doesn’t know that people had been sent down before him, and that they have died trying. He truly believes that if this all works out, he can be set free.
Simon has more human connection in the movie than in the game. He gets brought back up to the surface once so that they can attach a chainsaw to the ship, making him able to jab the monster that he is seeing. He then,unknowingly, blasts them with radiation from his x-ray camera.
There are other minor things that are added, like the same ship being used multiple times. There are hidden resources in the submarine like water and alcohol that were left there from the last person. Like the game, there is also a hidden message that says that whoever is reading it will never truly be free. Simon finds another ship down there, downloading its data. For some, the psychological torment of this movie is far harsher than the game. He is left with no human connection and truly starts to believe that the voice is someone trying to help him.
Simon is haunted by the beast that’s hunting him. It gets into his head and talks to him, driving him insane. It also gives him delusions of his past and the monster itself. Like the game, the submarine begins to flood, but the leaders want him to retrieve the black box so they can continue searching this blood ocean. In the end, he ends up gone with the only sign of him being the saved black box. They didn’t care about him, they cared about what he could do for them.
The fan expectations varied on what exactly you were a fan of. If you were a big fan of “Iron Lung”, you somewhat knew that parts of the movie, specifically the second act, were gonna be a bit slower. While some Markiplier fans thought the second act was almost unwatchable due to how slow it was and how little dialogue there was. Many Markiplier fans expected it to be fast paced like some of his other projects, when in reality it was only fast paced in the third act. Some were disappointed and thought that the movie was boring, others believed that the movie was a nearly perfect game adaptation. Some viewers weren’t really fans of Mark or the game itself. Some liked it and others also thought it was a bore. Many believe that the middle of the movie is unnecessary or boring even though it provides a lot of psychological aspects for the movie. A lot believed it was going to be super bloody and gory due to the amount of fake blood that was used on set (80,000 gallons). Some were disappointed to find out that it was just for the ocean and submarine flooding, while many others were glad that it was a practical effect instead of being completely CGI.
Many people feel as if it being light dialogue and not action packed is a large weakness. As there is little to no dialogue within the game, it had to be written for the movie and even then having too much interaction between different characters would defeat a huge part of the movie as Simon is supposed to be isolated. The movie follows the game as much as it can while also being in the form of a movie. If they were to stray too far into action-packing, it would not be a true “Iron Lung” adaptation as there is practically no action in the game itself.
It worked to bring a popular indie game to life. Being close to the reference material and even bringing in the game developer to make sure the lore was close to a T.
I truly believe that this was a good movie. I think that it did a beautiful job capturing the true bloody and psychological horror from the game.
“Iron Lung” is a good adaptation of the game. It is close to the horror of the source material while also bringing in new horror from the depths. This film was a beautiful execution of an expedition.
