Video game adaptations usually occur when the game in question has more than their share of expansive action. From the colourful world of a speed obsessed Sonic The Hedgehog, to the lore heavy brawling of Mortal Kombat, the more outlandish, pulse-pounding incident the better. However, what happens when someone adapts a game to the screen that has virtually no action whatsoever?
Offering us a bloody, oppressive answer is YouTuber Markiplier (aka. online games enthusiast Mark Fischbach) who has followed other social media personalities such as the Phillippou Brothers (Talk To Me) and Chris Stuckmann (Shelby Oaks) into the realms of filmmaking with Iron Lung, a low budget, high concept take on the atmospheric indie, submarine simulator game that he once played extensively on his channel. Directing, writing, starring and probably making runs to the local pizza place too, Fischbach has finally managed to get his downbeat labour of love into cinemas, but has this impressively ambitious content creator swam out into waters that are far too deep to swim?
In an exceedingly grim looking future, the event known as the “Quiet Rapture” has seen every star and habitable planet in the universe to suddenly vanish without a trace and the only humanity left in the cold expanse of space are the ones “lucky” enough to have been aboard space stations and space craft when the apocalyptic even occurred. Since then, various attempts have been made by the increasingly desperate survivors, the Consolidation Of Iron has made something of a remarkable – if icky – discovery on the remote moon of AT-5: and ocean of blood.
Possibly their only clue to what may have caused the Quiet Rapture, the Consolidation has decided to explore this grisly phenomenon by taking a convict, welding him up inside a makeshift midget submarine ominously dubbed the Iron Lung, and giving him a sobering choice – risk life and limb to explore the crimson depths of this grisly occurrence and it’ll count as time served and while life in this cruel future is harsh and brutal, spending it in prison is obviously going to be worse.
However, as “volunteer” Simon is welded into his aquatic metal craft, he starts to wonder if exploring in the Iron Lung is exponentially worse. With the crushing depths requiring the view port to be encased in metal, the only way he can see were he’s going is only with a nose-mounted x-ray camera that only takes a single, still picture at a time and he soon becomes convinced that there are living beings living in the bloody environment that want to do him harm.
Of course, let’s not forget the rising paranoia, crippling claustrophobia and choking panic that even if he succeeds in his mission, Simon may still be put to death for his crimes. I would say “onwards and upwards”, but the only place the Iron Lung is heading is to the bottom of the worse environment imaginable.
As a lot of seasoned directors will tell you, when they made their first films, one of the virtues that they had was that their relative inexperience became an odd ally as they were too ignorant of what you can and can’t do, it led them to make strange choices and odd risks that they would never have attempted if they were a seasoned, experienced. This approach seems to fit the world of Iron Lung perfectly as so much of Mark Fischbach’s debut feature seems to have come from a stubborn-self belief that’s birth many distinctive choices that may not all work, but certainly leads to a distinctive cinematic experience. For example, Fischbach ballsily tackles the original game’s multitude of restrictions head on like it’s some sort of challenge, insuring that the implied, Lovecraftican horrors of the source material remain mostly as ominous sounds brushing past the hull and single, frozen images temporarily burnt into an x-ray screen. No right-minded, experienced director would could to hamstring themselves so much by essentially casting themselves to play essentially a one man show with only a single, windowless location; but possibly the most impressive thing about Iron Lung is that Markiplier has mostly pulled it off.
Essentially setting course for the unsettling, uncertain moods of trippy brain melters such as Mandy and Under The Skin, Fischbach devotes himself to creating an epic of miniscule proportions, giving himself nowhere to hide that creates a nightmarish tone that’s somehow both nerve wracking and chokingly oppressive as it is surreally boring and repetitive, relying almost solely on the fear of the unknown to carry the load. As a result, this plasma drenched sci-fi horror ends up playing best as a film you stumble upon in the wee hours of the morning when your sleep-starved brain has its addled defenses down and is fully susceptible to its creepy charms (I myself caught a screening after an eighteen hour day – just saying).
As the almost sole performer (there’s the occasional voice that comes over his rickety comms and a face or two the appear at his window before he takes the dives) Fischbach aquits himself well, segueing between adopting a typical, gruff, cynical video game character voice to a more desperate, scared man who is done paying for his sins as he’s already found himself in hell and as a director, credit has to be given to how he makes his industrial, restrictive surrounding as cinematic as he can. Also, as is the case with sanity searing, Lovecraftican horrors, matters soon go from the psychological into full blown body horror – but there’s some filmmaking troughs among those topographical peaks.
While the film never fully shows its hand and admirably only offers anything close to explanations in broken radio transmissions or distorted voices that may be hallucinations, any one who doesn’t agree with the adage that the journey is more important than the destination is going to get profoundly impatient. But while I believe this sort of deliberate, non-story telling is vital in creating that magnificent, crushing mood, I will say that at over two hours (a lot of it button pushing, dial turning and map making), Iron Lung might have been better served being a little bit punchier. But on the other hand, by the time the film ends, you’re as desperate to see the light of day as it’s desperate, tortured antagonist – so maybe Fischbach was right after all.
Taking the title of fellow submarine film, Crimson Tide, to absurdly literal heights, Markiplier’s video game adaptation is rewarding, confusing, exhilarating and boring in equal measures. However, if you’re up for the ride, there’s much to love in a movie that’s deliberately stacked the storytelling deck against itself pretty damn high. Where Fischbach goes next is anyone’s guess, but when it comes to plumbing the oppressive, minimalist depths of trippy, indie filmmaking (think 20,000 Leagues Under The Seizure), he’s set himself on the right course.
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