Starring Markiplier, Caroline Rose Kaplan, Troy Baker, Elsie Lovelock, Elle LaMont, Jacksepticeye, and Isaac McKee.

Directed by Markiplier

Markiplier Studios, in cinemas now

In a far future where the universe is dying and barely a thousand humans are left alive, convict Simon (Markiplier) is bolted into an improvised submarine and dropped into a sea of blood on an abandoned moon and told to explore. If he survives, he’ll go free. But he isn’t alone…

Iron Lung is a glorious anomaly. Adapted from David Szymanski’s cult classic game by epochal YouTuber Markiplier who also directs and stars, it’s the platonic ideal of a zero budget SF movie. There’s one set, one star, almost all the special effects are still images and the only other cast members are glimpsed through a blood-soaked porthole or as X-ray ghosts on the Iron Lung’s sonogram camera.

If that sounds like a lot, it is, and that’s a lot of the charm. Szymanski’s original game concept is so boiled down to espresso strength unease that it maps onto classic low budget SF beautifully. This feels like something you’d find on a Blockbuster shelf in the ’90s and that’s meant to be the highest possible compliment. The effects are gnarly, from the soldered together nightmare of the Iron Lung itself to the Cronenbergian and oddly melancholy kraken that stalks it and the camera we glimpse it through. That camera, and the deliberately unpleasant placement of it (Simon has to walk to the camera, trigger it, wait five seconds for the image, watch it, then return to the controls) are the fundamentally unfair nature of the world embodied within the movie. Sonogramic ghosts mapping the impossible and the awful into existence one irradiated flash at a time. The moment Simon finds the first aid kit that was hidden from him through malice or incompetence, and tapes an X of surgical tape onto the camera button so it fires continuously is a hard fought victory. The shot of a tape X peeling slowly off the button and joining a pile of others on the floor shows how little it matters. The movie excels in this field, every frame telling us what the world is like and how desperate the situation is.

Markiplier impresses too. Bolted into the set for the duration of a shooting day, he’s got a nice line in Kurt Russell-esque, hard won ‘OH COME ON!’ action hero energy but it’s shot through with something much more frail and relatable. Simon is either a murderer, a crime doubly heinous when so few people are left, or a victim, and it’s clear which one he thinks he is from the jump. Markiplier’s warm, reassuring voice is a great carrier wave for humour. It’s a better one for desperation and as anti-heroes go Simon’s a strong contender for breakout character of the year. Markiplier’s direction impresses too, constantly finding new camera angles, new perspectives, hope and feverish invention in Simon’s impossible, fractured, shrinking world.

That being said, there are some major flaws here. The movie is good at two hours but would have been exceptional at ninety minutes and the glacial pacing will try some viewers’ patience for sure. The major issue is the worst audio mixing I’ve heard in years. I know, I know, that’s a perfect combination of asshole cinephile and ‘Get off my lawn!’ as a complaint but the audio in the last ten minutes is sludge. You lose Simon’s final couple of lines, the excellent soundtrack gets buried, another character’s lines are completely inaudible and the sound effects walk all over everything. It’s a shame, and one that only doesn’t sink the movie because everything else works so well.

Verdict: If you’re hearing impaired, wait for streaming and subtitles. If you aren’t, this is an essential visit for horror and SF movie fans. Run silent, run deep and run to see it. Because if this team are this good now, imagine how good they’ll be in a couple of movies time. 8/10

Alasdair Stuart