Publication Date: 02-01-2026

Iron Lung (2026) review

Dir. Mark “Markiplier” Fischbach

By: Steve Pulaski

Rating: ★½

When my good friend and podcast co-host Joe Viso gave me some context on Iron Lung, I immediately made it a priority to see on its opening weekend. I wanted to throw my support behind Mark Fischbach, a full-time YouTuber known as “Markiplier,” who specializes in “Let’s Play” videos of indie horror games. A fan of the 2022 video game of the same name, by David Szymanski, Markiplier self-financed a film adaptation of the game and, with the help of his loyal fans, reached agreements with AMC, Cinemark, and Regal Entertainment Group to distribute the film. This weekend, Iron Lung sits at #2 at the American box office, just a few million behind Sam Raimi’s Send Help.

A situation like this is unique. While I might not have enjoyed Iron Lung — more accurately, I found it ass-numbingly unenjoyable — but I remain quick to support YouTubers and other creatives looking to make their leap to the big-screen. I lauded Chris Stuckmann‘s approach to Shelby Oaks, even if I was lukewarm on the movie. I’ve been a fan of Shawn C. Phillips for so long, I remember when his “Blu-ray Tuesday Shopping” videos were simply “DVD Collection Updates.” Should Cody Leach, Established Context, or conversely, a YouTuber I’ve never heard of make a movie, my ass will find a seat in a nearby theater.

All that being said, it doesn’t give me any joy to say that Iron Lung is a bad movie. Atrociously paced and devoid of energy and explanation, it succumbs to the worst tendencies of a film adaptation of a video game insofar that the experience is akin to watching someone else hog the controller. At times, I wondered how I would control our main character, referred to as “Convict” (Mark Fischbach). For one, I would’ve more closely inspected all the dials on his submarine, so I would at least know what the hell I’d spend over two hours looking at. Then, I’d bring up the menu screen to tell me what exactly the numbers on his control panel represented. Finally, I would’ve likely “paused” the entire experience to spare myself and others from having any more minutes of our precious time wasted on such a thanklessly ponderous movie.

I feel like I need to catch you up to the plot, but there’s depressingly little on which to elaborate. Fischbach plays a convicted criminal who has gotten himself into some experimental, post-apocalyptic mission in which he’s welded into a submarine and sent into the depths of a literal ocean of blood on a remote moon. For nearly the entirety of Iron Lung‘s unjustifiably bloated two-hour runtime, Fischbach is the only person on screen. He has fleeting radio communication with the mission director (Caroline Rose Kaplan), but for the most part, he’s mumbling or shouting interjections such as “fuck me,” “fuck that,” and “shit” to himself. The dialog recalls last year’s splatter horror film Jimmy and Stiggs, and that’s not a positive.

So, confined we are to this tin can, observing Fischbach fiddle with knobs, jot down coordinates, look at screens that show grainy, X-ray photos of what is submerged in the blood, and occasionally argue with other voices the radio picks up. Because we almost never see for ourselves what occupies the depths of the blood, most of the worldbuilding is done through dialog. Material like this is obviously designed to be a slowburn, but such a play requires payoff. To say Iron Lung still has outstanding debts to pay its viewers is putting it mildly.

No context is given to how the world got to this point, or what exactly the “Quiet Rapture,” as it’s known, was. Even as time moves at a turtle pace, so much of what Fischbach’s character sees is internalized. When the radio magically works again, and he tells the disembodied voice about another ship he’s encountered, or how he should’ve run out of oxygen a long time ago, it’s as if we missed some exposition.

When we do get a glimpse of what this blood ocean looks like, it recalls the video game Waterworld on Virtual Boy of all things. It’s so visually opaque and ugly, and by this point, we might as well be floating listless in a sea of the record-breaking 80,000 gallons of fake blood this film used. As far as video game film adaptations are concerned, I unironically enjoyed Andrzej Bartkowiak’s much-maligned Doom more.

I reiterate that I will see the next movie Mark “Markiplier” Fischbach makes. The fact he got Iron Lung off the ground, let alone into over 2,000 theaters in America without formal distribution is a feat bigger than anything I’ve ever accomplished. Sometimes, the process and methodology of a movie is more interesting than the movie itself. In this case, just about anything is more compelling than watching a shaggy vulgarian function in a tin can for two hours.

Starring: Mark “Markiplier” Fischbach, Caroline Rose Kaplan, and Troy Baker. Directed by: Mark “Markiplier” Fischbach.