Iron Lung - Movie Review

Iron Lung is a sci-fi horror film written and directed by Mark Fischbach (aka Markiplier) in his feature film debut. It tells the story of survivors of the apocalypse who send a convict to a moon that's an ocean of blood, in a submarine to explore the depths. It is known that this was a passion project for Markiplier, but does the passion show, or is this dead on arrival?

In my opinion, this movie was a mixed bag. You can absolutely tell Markiplier was passionate about making this film, not only because he wrote it, directed it, and stars in the movie as the lead (and for most of the movie, he's the only on-screen character), but unfortunately, the execution is only good half the time. The positives here are that the movie thrives on atmosphere and great sound design. The atmosphere and claustrophobic setting make the horror very effective when it occurs, and the sound design is put to great use when the monster attacks in the second half of the film. Markiplier's performance is also surprisingly great. He brings his usual YouTube charisma to the big screen and genuinely conveys terror, for a first major film role (that he obviously gave to himself) he did a fantastic job. The second half of the film is very suspenseful and exciting, this is where the movie really shined for me.

As for negatives, the first half is extremely boring and uneventful. I get that Markiplier wanted to make a faithful adaptation of a video game he clearly loves but the way he executes aspects of the film such as the vague mystery, which resembles the game's puzzle-like nature, does not translate well to film. The film is also far too long, it runs at 2h 5min and because not much happens in the movie until the second half, a lot of the run time feels like long, unnecessary padding and a good chuck of time could have been cut. 

In the end, Iron Lung is a decent debut from Markiplier, a much better debut than what Chris Stuckmann had with last year's Shelby Oaks, if you do look past the admittedly boring first half, you do have a thrilling, suspenseful horror movie with a great performance from Markiplier, and you can't deny that the passion from Markiplier shows on every frame.

Grade:  C+

Studio:  Markiplier Studios

Run time:  125 minutes 

Rating:  R (for language, bloody images and some gore)

Release date:  January 30th, 2026

There will be reviews for Wuthering Heights, The Strangers: Chapter 3, Good Luck, Have Fun, Don't Die, Psycho Killer and Scream 7 coming soon.