The Secrets Of Iron Lung - A Film review and Analysis

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:01:03]Hello everyone. I'm not done boy. Today I want to talk to you about Iron Love. I loved the movie. It's a fantastic movie and uh coming out of my second screening, I just had so many questions, so many theories as I was driving with me and a friend back home uh from the cinema. So I I want to first of all talk about my thoughts on the film, the things that I love, the things that really um inspired me and also just little trinkets of of things that uh I personally loved about the movie. And then I want to talk about the secrets, the the sort of hidden things and theories that I that I had that I just want to share with all of you people that I presume love the movie as much as I did. Uh so let's begin. To start off, if you don't know what Iron Lung is, even though there's like a mountain of videos that I'm still receiving in my recommended, it's a psychic horror film and game uh in which humanity became space fairing and explored the galaxy, colonized planets, did immensely great things until one day the event known as the Quiet Rapture, which even just saying it gives me chills or speaking about it gives me chills because what it is is it was a cataclysmic event or an apocalyptic event in which uh out of nowhere, no word, no warning. All habitable planets, moons, stars disappeared without a sound or anything to mark when it happened or why it happened. And all that was left was all the space stations and spacecraft that had people in them that were not in those habitable bits. What then starts happening afterwards is the appearance of blood oceans on the on the only thing left which is asteroids and moons. So blood oceans start forming on moons and one specific one called AT5 uh has been targeted um by the coalition of iron to go investigate the blood ocean and which they send down convicts to investigate what could have happened why there's blood oceans to see if there's anything that can be salvaged from these blood oceans or even answers for why everything disappeared. things I love from the game that kind of translate into the movie is that sort of relieve feeling of desperation and and hopelessness and isolation. And I think the movie translates that almost perfectly. I think much like how the Five Nights at Freddy's 2 movie had an element of like just doing what the game does, Iron L does even better than that where a good chunk of the the first bit of the movie is just the game bit for bit, word for word. There's even the map that uh Mariplier or Simon has that is ripped straight from the game and I think that's so cool and I'll get into some other things that I thought were really cool in a minute. It's just so cool to see a game be represented one to one and it's sort of got me thinking about what horror games uh should be adapted next. I think maybe a fierce to fathom would be cool. Uh I think the one that I really want to see is um mouthwashing. That's for another topic for another day. I think it's so cool that the map is the way it is. Like it's it's ripped straight from the game, but not only that, it's like the top bit of it is cut and so you don't see beyond a certain point where in the game you do see beyond that point. And what's fascinating to me on second rewatch after play had playing the game uh the night of watching the movie and seeing how similar it is and how much it feels be sort of in Syon or the convex position afterwards. But I think it's really cool that everything is placed exactly where it is in the game. When Simon gets dragged by the eel, which you now know it's an eel, all the way to the bit up to the top right. Uh, for one, that's exactly where you find the fish at the end of the game. That's where it takes you where that's where it destroys your submarine at the end of the game, which is so cool. It's in that exact spot. for two. The um the like the light that like like emits and you can go see it. It makes this camera even like wobble is in the exact same place that it is from movie to game. And I think that's so cool because they didn't have to do that. In fact, they could have like made their own map, made little alterations, but the fact that they kept everything pretty much one to one is crazy for a video game movie. There's so many things like The Last of Us changed everything in the season in the second season. I think Sonic's in a similar way keeps everything the same, but you have stuff like the old Mario movies or even just there's so many uh video game movies that will just not translate the correct things. A good example that is the recent Silent Hill 2. It's called Return to Silent Hill, but it's basically Silent Hill 2. But it's it's crazy to me that they don't carry over most things from that. I think it's if you know something works well, I I think you shouldn't change things. And that's exactly what Maraby did here with his direction and writing and everything. So, uh I think that's so cool. And I don't see enough appreciation for the fact that everything's in the exact spot where it is in the game, which is something that they didn't have to do once again. But I think it's awesome. Another thing I love is that you get some proper explanation for what the camera does. I love the idea that it's an X-ray. Um, and that's such a cool reveal in the movie cuz when uh Jack Septic Guy gets blasted with radiation, you just see his skeleton and you're like, "Oh, I even on first viewing I was like, that's interesting."

[00:06:51]That that does so much to explain and expand the world than the game did. And I think that's so cool and it explains so much of like there's now there's a huge debate on like Reddit of like was that a skeleton or was it the eel? But you could see it's like skeleton which I think it's I think what the X-ray does is it gets it just x-rays through the blood to get an image less so much I think it gets especially when it's in blood I think it just acts as a camera out of it. I think it acts as as an X-ray. I think that's kind of how it seems to work in the in the movie at least. Another thing that I love that the movie does is they use so much of the screen uh where you see all the pictures like they use it for so much tension and it's the genuinely quite unnerving when you the delay from pressing the button to seeing something on the screen and that's less so much in the movie. I love that they instead translate that to like him having to keep pressing the button when the lights went out. I think there is still a lot of tension of what's he going to see when he presses the button. Especially when he presses the button and the camera is really far away and you see the eel from far away in the shot and then you're like, "Oh, what's that?" And then it shows his reaction. He's like, "Huh?" It shows what he saw and it's horrifying. I think the design of that eel is incredible. Um, deadly melodic incred like should have won some kind of award for that and hopefully they will. Um, because wow, Dudley should be incredibly proud of that. It's really good design work and uh works amazingly when it's uh got the full X-ray effect on it. It looks so cool. Uh uh but yeah, they use so much of the camera. Like him having to constantly press it to get light to see anything is such a neat way of doing it. I like that he has a flashlight, but it's not your conventional flashlight. It's one on a life jacket. I think that's so creative and so Markiplier I suppose is in in that like if you've watched like in space or a date with or or a heist with I think it really comes across how creative Mark is especially with the cinematography.

[00:09:18]The movie is nuts. Like the there's some transitions that I've seen on Tik Tok.

[00:09:22]There's some some shots that they to my surprise the highlight was whenever they did something really fancy and weird with the triangle that shows the orientation of the submarine. I think incredible. Wow. Philip Roy. Um the cinematographer should be so proud of of his work. It's it's outstanding. A big shout out to the VFX as well. There's some really awesome shots that kind of translate later into my sort of thoughts on the sort of secrets and the lore and what this movie has to say about this story from the game. There's one shot with like what will be future mutated Mark looking back at him and I think that looks amazing. That was my jaw was like on the floor with how like nice that shot looked. I think that goes hand in hand with the uh cinematography as well cuz I think those two just meshed so well and it had such a unique style but with the like V effects, the special effects, everything coming all together.

[00:10:28]Another shot that I really liked was when the when the eel came through the submarine and it looked kind of like how it does in in the game, but uh it came through. You can see the eye uh in slow motion. and all the blood is rushing around. Um, and I'll get back to what goes on in that scene in a minute, but that shot looks really cool and to hear that maybe at some point that was also kind of practical with like a dilating pupil. Awesome. And once again, everyone should be proud of that. I think every shot in this movie looks really cool. I think the stuff at the beginning, the shot when you see the you actually get to see the quiet rapture happen and it's just it looks like someone selected the planet and then just pressed delete and shot. I was like, "Wo!" Cuz I, you know, I've seen some edits of like it kind of looking like um when light disappears from like when the sun appears from behind a disappears from behind a planet and it kind of just disappears into blackness. I saw that effect. I'm sure it'll I'll I'll put it on screen and credit the person, but it I thought it would look like that. But I love the inspired choice of it just being like gone. The acting is incredible. The voice acting. Markiplier is obviously incredible at this. It's honestly his best acting he's done and he was really good in like Heist in Space. I think he should be really proud of his sort of acting and how he's self-funded this again. He should be really proud of this. But like uh everyone in this movie does a really good job. Jack Sept guy does it for that one shot that he's in, but he looks genuinely pissed off and I and it's incredible. Um, Troy Baker, I I've met the guy and he's lovely and he always does a great job, but here he really like sold the sort of like he says in the movie, we need this like and and wow, he does a really good job. And it's fun to see him like it was cool to like in my second viewing. I actually saw him in the movie. In my first viewing, I didn't see his face and then I was looking for it in the second viewing, but it looks uh it it's really cool to see him in in this movie.

[00:12:48]Caroline Kaplan should be really proud.

[00:12:50]She's the like captain of the of the ship and uh like with the prosthetics on and she looks so cool and also just does a really good job of kind of displaying this sort of tough captain of a ship that's like forced to do a horrible thing. And I think it really comes through the whole time and um she should again be proud of her work and I hope she gets more acting jobs because of this of the success that this movie's had. Yeah, everyone does an amazing job. Everyone does an amazing job. The music is also fantastic. uh Andrew Hashalt, I believe his name is, he's done some work on the DLCs for Doom Eternal, which I am only now playing, but I think uh he should be proud of his work in Doom as well. I think when those DLCs came out, he got a lot of like flak for not being a MC Gordon. And Gordon's amazing, don't get me wrong, but I think Andrew Hashalt really shows off his talent in the DLC and especially here, he really shows off. I think you get so invested in the music. I love that there's like a um I saw one of his videos recently where he talked about like there was a scream that he added into like the mix of one bit later on, but I think even in the trailers I I thought this is incredible. And uh once again, he should be proud of this. It's awesome. Like wow.

[00:14:26]Um it really fills you with dread it.

[00:14:28]And honestly, I would listen to this soundtrack anyway. It's it's awesome.

[00:14:33]But uh th those are my general appreciation bits for each department. I hope uh David Zamansky is is as proud as as he should be for making such a cool world, cool concept, cool like horror thing. I love horror and I hope to do a a video on my favorite horror genres and aesthetics in the future. So um I think iron lung will definitely be among those. Now I want to talk to you about the secrets of iron lung. The things I noticed on my drive home while talking to my friend about all the little tiny little details, all the little things. I think my main theory is sort of that there has to be some sort of time loop that's going on here. I think it's kind of very in in space with Markiplier in that way. here done really sly and really well that you could have like a full-blown debate and conversation about it. You never get fully the right answer. But like I mentioned the before, at some point you see like a monster version of Simon that you see him become later at the very end of the movie when he's destroying the ship. Um breaking the teeth, but I didn't realize those were teeth until my friend pointed that out to me. I thought they were pipes. I was like, where did these pipes come from? but they're teeth and I think that's really cool. Anyway, he transforms and gets like teeth growing out of his side and it looks just like the monster that he kept on seeing throughout the submarine uh early on in the movie. I think that's so cool because it kind of also kind of looks like the eel. So, it's possible and I think this is sort of my theory, but also it doesn't kind of line up when you think of the design of the eel that deadly melodic shown off. Um, but especially in the movie it looks a lot like this that he he gets sucked into the the blood he becomes the eel and then through whatever happened with the quiet rapture or the light he gets brought back in time to before and he sort of or at the very least his his monster version of himself gets put back at the start and he sort of is guiding the younger version of him around the ship. I saw a post recently that was saying how it's interesting that like both times you see the monster version of him, they swap places. When you initially see him, he's near the computer that's uh behind the near the near where the light is. And then later on when you see him after he's gone through the like the hell of um you know seeing the the giant eye in the sky um after he's gone through the light um which I thought some what that does. I thought it was pretty cool that the idea that he's there as well in the exact opposite position and moving in the exact same way as he once did before which I think is fascinating and there has to be sort of like a time loop but also the like I mentioned before when he transforms and has the teeth growing out of himself he looks like he's becoming the eel and it could be that he becomes the eel gets sent back in time some cosmic horror type thing. And I think that would be really cool if he ends up becoming the eel. Some other things that sort of I thought were really cool.

[00:18:07]There's one shot in particular, this is a side note, there's a bit where he hears the sound from the computer screen playing like a audio message from like from the SM8. And I thought it's really cool that he looked at the speaker and then went, "Oh [ __ ] it's not that. it's the the screen, which I thought it was really cool. And the other theories I have, I I love the idea that in the movie it kind of poses this idea that perhaps it's like a a or a god or some sort of cosmic deity that's just looking at at our universe. And the backlash from that is that or the side effect from that is that it like things from the universe and this that's just the consequence of a of a cosmic god just being like, hm, what's going on over here? I think that's really cool. I love that the movie poses like Simon says it that maybe wouldn't it make more sense or be more logical. They were transported to a parallel pocket universe and everyone else was just waiting for them to come back. I think that's a really inspired and intriguing idea to say. I think it just I wouldn't have thought of it. I think everyone took the idea that everyone else had vanished at face value and never thought, hm, I don't think that's the answer. And I definitely prefer more the desolation of everyone else disappearing. But I think there's so much interest in in what that is.

[00:19:33]Another interesting thing like I mentioned with the eye coming uh like through when you see the eel coming through is that much like how he would make Simon would make deals with uh Kaplan's Caroline Kaplan's character uh you would he would say deal to whatever um she said or like that we had a deal that you would let me free or whatnot. But when the cosmic when eel the eel comes through it says deal and then later on I think the deal was something to do with him surviving but maybe not telling them what he saw or maybe infecting everyone else because why else would it transport him back to not where like it pretty much just where he had been where the eel had grabbed him and pulled him into what I I presumed I took it as that the eel took it to its like feeding area.

[00:20:35]Um or if you put it into perspective that that is Simon has become the eel.

[00:20:42]It's trying to like direct it to um complete the loop. It's It's pulling it away to get it into that like like circle bit at the top of the map so that um it can like complete the cycle and and move on and and whatnot. And I think it's it's so cool if that's the case. Um but also there's it's it's a hive mind and you can see on the design of the eel it it has multiple bodies put into it.

[00:21:10]So, I I don't know where that would fall in line um with previous missions that have been sent down or anything like that, but I think there's so much intrigue and I love that the movie doesn't explicitly say any of these things are true. But yeah, the light sends him back to a place where he can get signal and also where he originally was when he rammed the skeleton.

[00:21:37]And I think that's really cool that maybe he made a deal with it to survive essentially. Uh which was all that he ever wanted. Even the the lady from the estimate over the speaker or microphone sort of says like what would you do to survive? And he says everything and then that crazy stuff happens. So I think that must be the deal that was sort of struck is that he survives but at the cost of like maybe his own mortal like his own being. But yes, I think there's so many cool concepts and ideas that this movie throws into the mix and I think once again Marip and all the team should be really proud of the story that they've made. And yeah, I think there has to be something going on here overall with this cosmic entity and the sort of minations and plans that they have in motion. Um, but yes, thank you very much for watching this video. I I love the movie and I hope you've enjoyed watching me yap about it for so long.

[00:22:41]And uh let me know what you thought of the movie and uh let me know what you think of my wacky theories and and and concepts. I I want to see if you have any uh fun theories and I uh look forward to reading them and seeing what you guys all have to think. So, thank you very much for watching. I hope you have a most triumphant day. Thank you very much.