Iron Lung is an impressive directorial debut from longtime Youtuber Markiplier, a love letter to psychological indie horror, and a huge win for the fake blood industry.
Intensity 🩸🩸 out of 🩸🩸🩸🩸🩸
Written and Directed by: Markiplier (Mark Fischbach)
Iron Lung (2026) is not your ordinary, average-joe, run-of-the-mill horror movie. Not only did it break the record for most fake blood of any horror movie (with 80,000 gallons! Eeeek!), but Iron Lung has proven a huge commercial success, despite breaking pretty much all of the film industry rules.
Based on an indie video game by David Szymanski, the real star of Iron Lung is longtime YouTuber Markiplier (Mark Fischbach), who directed, starred in, and self-financed the entire movie. With a measly budget of $3.6 million, and absolutely no distributor backing, Iron Lung almost didn’t make it to major theatres. Then a grassroots campaign by his fans brought the movie to thousands of theatres over the course of a few days, making the movie go on to gross $52 million dollars.
We live in an age of media conglomerates increasingly monopolizing the film industry (read: huge media companies own everything and keep also buying each other for fun and more money). Combined with the increasing power of streaming services, Iron Lung is not only an impressive film, but honestly, kind of a fuck you in the face of all these media giants.
Markiplier, who we’ve known and loved on YouTube since 2012, has been promoting indie horror games since he started the channel 14 years ago. Bringing an indie horror film to thousands of people worldwide– without any commercial backing, mind you— is an incredible high point in his career. Iron Lung is a testament to his love and respect for the genre.
Cast
Important note about the cast: Markiplier plays the main character, Simon, who is stuck in a small submarine, alone, for the entire movie. There are a few flashbacks, some engagement with people at the research lab, recorded voices on the submarine, and some fun hallucinations (or real voices? who is to say…). Because of the plot and small budget, the cast is pretty small besides our leading man, consisting of a few secondary actors, voice actors, and a cameo from David Szymanski himself.
- Markiplier (Mark Fischbach) as Simon, a convict with a mysterious past, forced to explore an ocean of blood on a submarine in exchange for his freedom, with the mission to uncover the secrets of the apocalyptic “Quiet Rapture.”
- Isaac McKee as a young Simon (hello flashback!)
- Caroline Kaplan as Ava, the leader of the research mission, who orders Simon to explore the ocean and guides him along from the research lab over a speaker in the submarine
- Troy Baker as David, a mechanic in the research lab
- Elsie Lovelock as the voice of “the Speaker” (also appearing as a research lead on the space station)
- Elle LaMont as the voice of “the Whisper” (also appearing as a research assistant on the space station)
- Mick Lauer as the voice of “The Guy Who Told You to Cross the Wires” (it’s a spoiler, don’t ask)
- David Pettitt as the Father
- Seán McLoughlin (known online as jacksepticeye) as Jack
- Alanah Pearce as “a Familiar Voice” (what does this mean? I don’t know…)
- David Szymanski as himself (love a cameo)
- Rahul Kohli, Ethan Nestor, Valkyrae and Mika Midgett provide additional voices
Synopsis
To be completely honest, there is a point at which you will have no idea what is happening in this movie. But I will do my best here.
Iron Lung takes place in an apocalyptic future in which almost all the stars, planets, and people in the universe have vanished in an event called “The Quiet Rapture.” This leaves only a few hundred people alive on space stations around the galaxy. As one of the few left, Ava, says, “Too few to rebuild. Too many to feed.”
After the Quiet Rapture, several moons mysteriously appear, covered in oceans of blood. Hoping that they will reveal some critical information about the apocalyptic event, researchers seek to explore the oceans in hopes of saving humanity. Our main character Simon is a convict chosen to explore one such ocean in exchange for his freedom, navigating in a one-man submarine dubbed the “Iron Lung.”
Due to the immense pressure of the ocean, the submarine has no windows, and Simon can only “see” his bloody surroundings through an x-ray camera. As he explores the ocean floor, the grainy camera takes increasingly alarming photos, and Simon questions why he was really sent there in the first place, and whether he will ever truly get his freedom.
Review
In a word, Iron Lung is claustrophobic. We are stuck inside the submarine along with Simon for the full 2 hours and 5 minutes of the movie, and you definitely feel it. For some viewers, this may get tedious, but for me, the close quarters are a critical part of what makes Iron Lung Iron Lung. Simon is literally trapped, breathing limited oxygen under thousands of gallons of blood, and the audience is right there with him. Shooting in only one location is also a pretty convenient way to save money on a movie with such a small budget.
Despite having less to work with, cinematographer Philip Roy was very creative in developing a whole world in only one set, especially as the movie progresses and Simon’s reality begins to warp. The soundtrack by composer Andrew Hulshult–who had only worked on video games prior to Iron Lung–was another high point of the movie, making the tension in the small submarine even more suffocating.
Blood-wise, this movie rocks. Beating Evil Dead’s 2013 record of 50,000 gallons of blood, Markiplier went above and beyond, drenching himself in 80,000 of the cherry syrup stuff. He even went to the hospital for getting so much fake blood in his eyes that they were stained red. Sometimes horror movies don’t treat blood right, and by that, I mean the color and consistency is totally off. I refuse to watch another movie with light pink, watery, almost see-through blood. But Iron Lung does fake blood right. Dripping down every surface, and the viscosity?? Dead on. Thank you, Markiplier, for your service.
Markiplier has also stated that after years of Freddy Fazbear creeping up behind him on his video game play-throughs, he’s pretty done with jumpscares. But Iron Lung doesn’t need them. The movie uses some truly breathtaking body horror, lots and lots of suspense, and an ocean of blood to draw you into one of the most confusing movies I’ve ever seen. I had to read fan theories on Reddit after leaving the theater to get any sense of what had happened by the end– which I highly recommend if you ever see it. Will you be confused after watching this movie? Yes. Definitely. 100%. But will you be able to stop thinking about it? Probably not.
Conclusion
Overall, even though Markiplier’s acting can leave a little to be desired at times (don’t tell him I said that), Iron Lung is a very fun and delightfully confusing indie horror film with a beautiful bloody cherry on top.
If you like sticking it to the man (large entertainment companies), watch this movie. If you like fun diy indie horror films that clearly spent most of their budget on some of the best fake blood I’ve seen in a while, watch this movie. And if you like to be confused, you should definitely watch this movie. All the rest of you, whatever. Watch it anyway.