Another week, another videogame adaptation hits the movie theaters—but this one is a bit different. YouTuber Markiplier (Mark Fischbach) produced, directed, acted in, and even distributed an adaptation of indie horror game Iron Lung, which he first recorded himself playing in 2022.
But which is better, watching Markiplier play the game for 45 minutes on YouTube or watching the 2+ hour adaptation he directs and stars in? I decided to watch both yesterday—including a follow-up video where he spent 30 minutes replaying Iron Lung—meaning I submerged myself in more than three entire hours of Markiplier in a single day.
As you might expect at the bottom of an ocean of blood on an alien planet, it’s spooky as hell down there, and it’s a lot of fun watching Markiplier react to the various alarming sounds and events as the sense of dread grows and grows. I enjoyed his playthrough, as well as the 30-minute follow-up video after a patch added a boatload of lore to the submarine sim. If you don’t like playing horror games yourself, this is a pretty good way to experience Iron Lung.
So… how was the Iron Lung movie? Well, I can’t be as straightforward about Markiplier’s film as I can about his YouTube videos. There’s plenty of good stuff in the movie, most of it in the first hour, but also plenty of problems, especially toward the end.
One thing Markiplier’s film does well is expand on the submarine itself. The controls, readouts, layout are all delightfully faithful to the game, but the addition of some secret compartments and hidden areas give the sub more history and utility, and give his character, Simon, something to investigate besides terminal entries and murky photographs. It can be a bit slow—they probably didn’t need to include every close-up shot of water dripping that they filmed—but I like slow. It builds tension.
The movie also adds an early scene where the sub has surfaced after its initial descent (this doesn’t happen in the game) letting Simon talk to his topside handlers through the Lung’s single porthole. He’s already gotten a taste of the horrors of the deep and desperately wants out, but they insist on sending him back down for more. It’s a tense and grim conversation, beautifully punctuated by the ocean’s blood continuously seeping over the porthole between them as they talk. Good stuff.
Less successful is the film’s attempt to give Simon a backstory—there are a few brief flashbacks showing why he’s been sealed in the sub—and the delivery of gobs of lore that, in the game, was presented as a series of text entries on a computer terminal. Relating all this information in dialogue would be tricky enough, but a lot of it comes in the form of panicked yelling and distorted voices over the sub’s intercom, making it hard to follow and pretty cumbersome to get through.
The atmosphere in the first half of the movie does a decent job of matching the game, where near-silence and slow progress contributes heavily to the sense of dread. The second half of the movie is filled with so much screaming and yelling, shaky and blurry footage, and overbearing sound effects and music, that it’s far too overwhelming to maintain any sort of tension. The game is minimalist. The movie ain’t.
I’m still glad I saw the film, and happy Markiplier made it. With movie rights to so many games being snapped up by FOMO-stricken studios who probably only bought them to prevent another studio from claiming them first, it’s great to see a niche game like Iron Lung turned into a movie by someone who genuinely loves the source material—even if I didn’t wind up loving the movie myself.
By now, you can probably guess my pick for which version of Iron Lung you should watch. Yeah, I think your time is better spent watching Markiplier play the game rather than star in it, but here’s an even better idea: play Iron Lung for yourself. It’s short, it’s brilliant, and it’s even on sale for 50% off on Steam right now, meaning you can own it for a mere four bucks. That’s a lot cheaper than a movie ticket.
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