I was 14 in 2014, so yeah. Markiplier. I’m also going to be somewhat inconsistent with spoilers. I personally think my review is readable before the movie without spoiling anything important. In fact, some readers might enjoy the scaffolding the review will provide. Anyway, on to the review.
Review
I spontaneously watched the movie yesterday at the 10pm showing. I was aware that the movie was in the making, but I had never seen the game nor the trailer. I didn’t even realize that the plot was the character diving into an ocean of blood. I actually hate blood, so I was very squeamish throughout the movie.
Verdict: good movie. Especially considering that Markiplier directed, acted, and edited it. It isn’t high art, but it is a decent horror film that I’d recommend to horror fans. And of course, any fan of Markiplier. Hell, anyone who has heard of Markiplier. It is incredibly impressive that Mark alone can compete with the movie industry (and there is something interesting about it opening the same weekend as Melania). At the time of checking, it is #2 in the US with a gross of $18 million. That is only $2 million behind Send Help and $11 million above Melania. Of course, we’ll have to see how it goes in the upcoming weeks. I anticipate a sharper decline than most movies. I genuinely wonder how well it would perform if it had a normal marketing strategy in addition to its existing fan base.
I was a little worried that this movie would feel like “Mark stuck in a tube” for 2 hours. I was pleasantly surprised that while watching the movie I “forgot” that Markiplier was the actor playing a character.
Next, a summary (more of a synopsis), where I intend to debunk a stupid criticism. A prisoner, after some post-apocalyptic event, is sent down into an ocean of blood to find things. It is implied to be a suicide mission. Along the way, things obviously go wrong, and more is found than should have been. That is, more or less, the plot. It is purposely vague and mysterious, which I think lends to the film’s overall tone.
One thing I’ve seen some critics write is that the plot was intractable, that they didn’t understand it. I must admit I think those critics are stupid. I certainly didn’t understand everything about the plot and (by extension) the world of Iron Lung. After watching it, I did dive into the original game and its lore and found that additional information supplemented my understanding of the plot, not revised it. You can figure out the broad strokes of the plot and the world by simply watching the movie, and the movie gives you enough to understand the events of the movie.
I frankly do not understand these critics’ braindead take. Was it easier for me to grasp because I have more general context about internet horror? I doubt it, as the horror aspects of the film were clear-cut. I think the confusing part was the status of the “fish-lady” and her role in the plot. Her role was, mind you, purposely psychedelic. But I got the impression that she was a distinct organism living in the ocean who knew about the cosmic horror contained within, mistakenly showed it to Mark’s character, and then tried to prevent Mark’s character from releasing it. This is fairly straightforward, and even if this is the wrong narrative it shows that I can construct one.
I think, if there’s any criticism of the film, it is the character’s behavior throughout. Mark’s character is inconsistently emotional, bashful, confident, etc. He just has a “range” of emotion without any clear and consistent cause for them. I’d call the character inconsistent. That being said, the character’s inconsistency is seemingly baked into the character.
Characters in general are inconsistent, but the precise meaning of this should be elaborated. The people who put Mark’s character in the Iron Lung are withholding information and generally untrustworthy. This should be obvious to any viewer. The fish—she is admittedly opaque in her behavior, and the fish’s behavior lends to audience confusion.
Look: a major theme of the film is isolation, a species of interpersonal relation. Mark’s character is not just physically isolated from others, but emotionally, personally, and humanly. His complex emotional trauma is not appreciated by any other character. His complex emotional trauma was sparked by a betrayal from his “brothers in arms” and resulted in a sort of betrayal of humanity. His betrayal makes it so that no other human character trusts him, and his status as an expendable criminal makes him inhuman in the eyes of the human characters. Not to mention that the other character Mark’s character tries to relate with is not a human. The audience’s, and by extension Mark’s character’s, inability to situate themselves into the complex web of interpersonal relations can be interpreted as a feature and not a bug.
I’d be remiss not to mention the cosmic horror tropes—the main character’s descent into madness, mysterious apocalyptic event, stuff “bigger than” humans, etc.—and how they might feel tired to those engrossed in internet horror. The perfect version of this “analog cosmic horror” genre is Gemini Home Entertainment, in my eyes. Although Iron Lung (the game) predates it, this genre’s prevalence on the internet made the plot feel very familiar.
Onto another criticism: that it is long and boring. I did check my phone a couple of times during the movie, but, honestly, who doesn’t nowadays? I was never bored during the movie, though—just curious about what time it was.
This review has been somewhat rambly, but I am going to be so real with you, reader. This movie is a litmus test. It tests two things: can you string together a fucking plot? Can you sit down and focus on something for two fucking hours? I know that I can. Is it because I am used to sitting down to read dense philosophy for hours at a time? Perhaps. But I can sit down and read dense philosophy for hours at a time because I find it interesting. And I also find a lonely journey to find mysterious cosmic horrors lurking in a sea of blood interesting. Do you?
(Notably, this is not the essence argument I articulated in a previous article. It is the inverse of the argument. For a good human is a good mammal. I think that Iron Lung tries a certain kind of horror movie and generally succeeds at it.)
Misc
- Mark’s acting was bad at the beginning. It improved steadily throughout.
- I think the flashbacks could have been better. I get what they tried to do, but I sense that they could have been integrated into the plot better.
- I didn’t realize that Jacksepticeye did a voice. Am I stupid?
- When are they going to make a Mouthwashing film? Actually, that might be difficult to make work…