The camera only exits the submarine three times during “Iron Lung:” when the movie begins, showing the darkening of the stars and the lowering of the submersible into the ocean below; when the movie ends; and for a moment between when the mix of radiation poisoning and depleting oxygen bends the human mind to see a great being some might call God.
“Iron Lung” is a 2026 theatrical adaptation of a 2022 video game of the same name and is a science fiction horror film set in an ocean of literal blood. The movie was written and directed by internet personality Markiplier, whose real name is Mark Fischbach. The film was self-funded by Fischbach with a budget of $3 million and has made $27 million since its opening on Jan. 30, receiving mixed ratings from critics and overwhelmingly positive audience reactions.
“Iron Lung” owes some of its popularity to Markiplier’s online community supporting his work, but the movie’s premise, scripting, acting and effects were able to carry the initial wave of interest into full blown success. Fischbach’s acting had some standout moments, such as the line included in much of the film’s promotional material — “I just want to live, is that so wrong?” — where his voice sews together the unfairness and impossibility of survival he is forced to overcome.
The movie is not for everyone, with its appropriate R rating and slow and narrow story, but it is certainly weird, and that is something rare in the modern entertainment scene rife with regurgitation. The plot is not about saving the world; the chance to do that has long passed. All that anyone can do is survive.
Fischbach’s character Simon, first introduced as a convict, is trapped inside of the submarine. The port through which he entered has been welded shut, and the single window showing only crimson is quickly closed. A crisis, called the quiet rapture, has led the humans who remain to believe these depths hold the best chance for their survival. Simon is told he is the first one to enter the depths, and though the submarine is rudimentary, it will withstand the pressure of the ocean.
Back in the ocean, the submarine cannot ascend on its own, leaving Simon at the mercy of the mothership he is tethered to if he ever wants to see the stars again. He is asked to visit a series of locations and take a photo with the camera onboard. If he does so, his criminal sentence, which deemed him expendable enough to be locked inside of the submarine, will be over.
All Simon has to navigate are a readout of his current coordinates, a map which he can draw his slow meandering path onto, a throttle and four lights that alert him if he approaches an obstacle. The camera, his single pinhole into the outside, is activated by a button on the far side of the interior. It displays on a screen nearby, but the image quickly fades before the blurry shapes can truly be understood.
The small room feels massive when he walks from the control panel to the camera and back, but tiny when it is all the viewer sees of the alien plant and dystopian world. It is tempting for a story set in such an unfamiliar place to be rife with detail and description of all that is new, but there will never be an answer to many of these questions, and with extinction looming, few of these questions really matter.
When the journey though the crimson waves feels like it has just begun, the oxygen meter loses one of its four bars and Simon and the audience both realize that there will only ever be two possible endings: either he runs out of oxygen, or he does not. He needs to work faster.
He takes a photo at the next marked location on his map, but instead of another grainy image showing rolling sea floor, Simon sees that he is face to face with the skeleton of alien whose agape jaws hold too many teeth and whose presence means that he is not alone in the ocean of blood.
As if the skeleton is alive and encircling him, the proximity sensors light up in all directions. The mothership does not seem as distressed by this information as Simon and repeatedly asks him to confirm what he sees, eventually hoisting him up and telling him that all the rattling is simply the sea floor shifting. This is an alien planet with an ocean of blood after all; there will be nothing normal. He is in the hanger just briefly as a sample collecting device is welded onto the front of the submarine while crew bicker about refilling his oxygen.
No one seems to hear Simon refuse to return to the depths, certain that there are creatures alive and predatory down there. He slams the camera’s large button to get their attention, creating a large flash followed by screams. The camera uses x-ray imaging to pierce the viscous red blood. Simon is told he irradiated everyone present, almost certainly killing the welder.
He is apologetic, but apologies do not collect samples, and he is dropped back into the ocean where a new voice tells Simon his next assignment. He is also told that he is safe from the radiation, but very little of what the people in the mothership say seems to be true.
He is blindly rammed at full speed into the alien skeleton for the sampler to grab hold, but he must do so in a submarine where the hull is one collision away from imploding, blood now leaking though tiny cracks and onto his hand.
It takes courage to return to a place where he almost died, and Simon finds it in a pendant of a preserved leaf hidden in an electrical box alongside a note. Clearly, he was not the first person to be locked in this submarine. Simon wants to live, so he must do this.
Like before, his sensors light up and he is thrown about. The radio is alive with chatter. The decision to cut the tether is made, and Simon and the submarine are dragged away by exactly what he was afraid of.
He wakes on the harsh metal floor, injured. The power is out, oxygen is down to one bar and the radiation from the x-ray has gotten into his system. The only light he has is the screen that displays the most recent photo, each push of the shutter ticking away his life, but also necessary to help him find the tools to restart the engine.
For much of what follows, Simon hallucinates and remembers, expanding the story outside of the submarine. But at the same time, it is all in his mind, which is still trapped inside.
Simon is determined to survive, but the ocean of blood does not make it so easy. “Iron Lung” will end one of two ways, either he runs out of oxygen, or he does not.
Joshua Reisenfeld can be reached at [email protected]