"Telling yourself "This is bigger than us" proves an essential survival tactic in " Iron Lung." Not just for the sci-fi film's doomed protagonist - welded inside a rusty submarine and forced to explore a literal ocean of blood to win his freedom - but also for the various audiences navigating YouTuber Markiplier's exhausting and ambitious feature debut finally in theaters this weekend."
"In this grueling single-location thriller, adapted from David Szymanski's 2022 horror game, filmmaker/star Mark Fischbach (known online as "Markiplier") traps viewers alongside himself as Simon, a prisoner aboard the space station Eden. Reeling after a mass-casualty event known as the Quiet Rapture, humanity's last stand is just the starting block for a project that demands endurance before it delivers immersion, ultimately revealing the promise and peril of creator-led video game adaptations at scale."
Mark Fischbach adapts David Szymanski's 2022 horror game into a grueling single-location thriller that traps viewers with Simon, a prisoner aboard the space station Eden. Simon pilots a rusty mini-sub called the Iron Lung to chart a crimson-red alien moon's gaseous bedrock after a mass-casualty Quiet Rapture. The camera never leaves the vessel, enforcing claustrophobia and a slow rhythm that demands patience and endurance. The film prioritizes faithful, creator-led ambition but lacks the expansive score and visual mythology of comparable works, making its punishing pace potentially too taxing for a younger fanbase.
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