{"id":13966,"date":"2026-01-30T23:36:36","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T04:36:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=13966"},"modified":"2026-02-21T16:52:23","modified_gmt":"2026-02-21T21:52:23","slug":"iron-lung","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2026\/01\/30\/iron-lung\/","title":{"rendered":"Iron Lung"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Iron Lung<\/strong> (2026)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Markiplier\/Sci-Fi-Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 127 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, bloody images, some gore)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Markiplier [Mark Fischbach]\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Markiplier [Mark Fischbach]\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Andrew Hulshult\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Philip Roy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: January 30, 2026 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Mark Fischbach, Caroline Rose Kaplan.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *<\/p>\n

\u00a0Let me start by saying I have a lot of respect for independent filmmakers. I admire those willing to sidestep the Hollywood system to realize their visions. More often than not, they make something worth seeing. However, that is NOT the case with Iron Lung<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Based on yet another video game I\u2019ve never heard of, Iron Lung<\/strong> is the work of Mark Fischbach, a YouTube gamer\/quasi-celebrity more commonly known as Markiplier. He directed it, wrote it, financed it and stars in it. I\u2019ve never heard of the guy, but there\u2019s no reason I would have since I\u2019m not a gamer. I was filled in on him by a young fellow sitting in the lobby waiting for the usher to finish cleaning the theater. Funny thing is I was about to call my grand-nephews to see what they knew.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I asked myself a few questions while watching Iron Lung<\/strong> last night: (1) What the hell am I watching?, (2) Why am I here?, (3) Is it almost over? and (4) Did I remember to leave a note for the milk man? Yes, I really did ask that even though I\u2019ve never had a milk man. I don\u2019t even drink milk. I had to think of something, anything to protect my brain from the stupification typically caused by exposure to mind-numbing movies like Iron Lung<\/strong>. It\u2019s idiocy at its (almost) worst.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Iron Lung<\/strong> is one of those claustrophobic deals that unfold in a single location. In this case, it\u2019s a small submarine piloted by the movie\u2019s main (and only) character Simon (Fischbach), a convict ordered by to retrieve a biological alien artifact from the bottom of a blood ocean on some distant moon in the far reaches of space. It\u2019s the future and the world was effectively ended by an event called the \u201cQuiet Rapture\u201d. All of the stars and habitable planets are gone along with almost all of humanity. Why is Simon supposed to bring this thing back? I\u2019m guessing it\u2019s supposed to be the key to restarting civilization. I really don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Predictably, things go wrong during the mission and Simon ends up stranded in the blood ocean. There\u2019s no easy escape (he\u2019s welded inside the vessel) and little chance of being rescued. He loses contact with the people in charge who care more about the mission than the man. Then he loses touch with reality. He slowly goes insane while trying to figure out a way to save his life.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Iron Lung<\/strong> is an incoherent slog. It\u2019s a dull mix of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1986), Das Boot (1982), The Abyss (1989), Event Horizon (1997) and probably a dozen other movies I can\u2019t think of at the moment. It\u2019s ugly, unpleasant, overlong and uninteresting. Half the time, it\u2019s too dark to tell what\u2019s going on with any clarity. It tries to pass itself off as cerebral, but it\u2019s not. It\u2019s just dumb.<\/p>\n

\u00a0There\u2019s really only one performance of note and that\u2019s Fischbach. He\u2019s okay, I suppose. I\u2019ve seen better and I\u2019ve seen worse. The problem isn\u2019t acting; it\u2019s character development. He never gives us reason to care about this guy, a criminal who claims he\u2019s innocent of some act of terrorism. Honestly, I\u2019m not clear on what he allegedly did. To me, he\u2019s just the guy driving the narrative. The only person we see is a woman named Ava (Kaplan). She\u2019s one of the people in charge. She gives the orders. She yells when Simon screws up. Then she\u2019s gone. That\u2019s basically it.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Fischbach didn\u2019t spend a lot on Iron Lung<\/strong> and it shows. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Some low-budget movies look great. That\u2019s not the case here. There aren\u2019t many effects. The only one I like is near the end when blood starts filling the vessel. It flows from the walls and ceiling. It looks like something out of The Evil Dead. I wish the rest of the movie had been that cool.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I cannot, in all good conscience, recommend Iron Lung<\/strong>. I absolutely hated it. I struggled to stay awake. But you should probably take my review with a grain of salt. It\u2019s possible, likely even, that gamers will have an entirely different take on it. I guess if you like the game Iron Lung, you might like the movie Iron Lung<\/strong>. Go ahead and see it if that\u2019s the case. All others should stay away.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Iron Lung (2026)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Markiplier\/Sci-Fi-Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 127 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, bloody images, some gore)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Markiplier [Mark Fischbach]\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Markiplier [Mark Fischbach]\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Andrew Hulshult\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Philip Roy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: January 30, 2026 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Mark Fischbach, Caroline Rose Kaplan. Rating: * \u00a0Let me start by saying I have a lot of respect for independent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13977,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sci-fi-fantasy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Iron-Lung-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13966"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13966\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13978,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13966\/revisions\/13978"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}