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Iron Lung!
(Full disclosure, I left a version of this post as a comment on Markiplier's Youtube channel. No idea if he'll ever see it – probably not, with the flood of comments he gets every day – but I just had to let out my feels.)
We watched Markiplier's Iron Lung on Tuesday, while flabbergasted and delighted that a local theater was showing it. I walked out of there totally stunned, with a 1,000 yard stare. What a massive accomplishment. What a thing to witness!
I started watching Mark's videos in 2015, in my mid-twenties, while going through some extensive shit irl, and like many of his viewers I've gotten so much joy, laughs, escapism, scares, and cozy safe feelings from his videos. The Outlast Let's Play was the first game I watched, it still has a super special place in my heart and I re-watch it regularly. (Outlast 2 can fuck off.) It was partly through Mark's videos that I realized I actually really like horror!
And now here we are, and I just watched one of THE best horror movies I've ever had the pleasure to see. And he was in it! And he wrote and directed it and poured his heart and soul into it for three freaking years! Honestly, I almost feel like I watched a close family member achieve this fucking epic feat. That's too parasocial, I know, but I caught myself grinning through the first few minutes of the movie like "that's my younger brother up there!" hahaha. :D
The scares were so good. The humor was understated and well-delivered in a way that 100% fit the atmosphere. The cosmic horror was executed so perfectly, revealing just the right amount of detail without giving it a fully visible face, that it felt like Mark's been personally studying Lovecraft in a dark cave for 100 years.
Random favorite moments (spoilers ahead):
Simon swearing and hitting the console, then muttering, "sorry," and petting it in apology. <3
Ava: (tense, quickly delivered list of instructions how to unlock the computer) – Simon: Control... alt...? SO relatable, haha.
even before the final body horror scene, the Iron Lung was starting to slowly mutate, with the leaking blood and slow growth of those scab-like things on the walls and in corners. A creeping terror that went largely unnoticed by Simon until it was way too late.
when the hull breached & the window shutter went down just in time, but Simon still got a spray of blood across the face, and I could just see his life flash before his eyes in stunned silence as he realized just how close he'd come to dying. Chills all down my back.
when Simon found out that Ava & the others didn't even know his name, and then when he and Ava shared their names with each other. That hit me really hard.
the fact that (to my knowledge) we never really found out who or what Eden is, and of course, what exactly happened to Filament Station. At first I thought Eden was the leader of some terrorist group, but then later it seemed like it might be a place or perhaps the name of a cult.
I love love love it when shit remains unresolved like that. I'm a huge fan of not having detailed explanations served up on a silver platter, the way so many modern movies do.
the entire montage, after the Iron Lung fell down that hole & Simon made his own map to explore it, where he's just totally locked in, expertly navigating away from the proximity alerts, making notes, steering carefully, scowling in total focus at the closed window. So damn cool.
"Just ignore me, beasts of the deep, I'm just passing through…" – that felt a lot like Mark's commentary on an LP, haha. It is such a human thing to nervously talk to these massive, scary, unknowable beings as Simon sits in a tiny tin-can that might cave in at any second under an errant claw or tooth, hoping they'll just let him pass by undisturbed. Terrifying!
the whole irradiation scene was so intense. It might be my favorite scene overall, though I'd have to re-watch IL one time or ten or twenty, to be really sure. The shock of realizing that 1) just what the camera is and what it has to do in order to take pictures through the blood, and 2) Simon just accidentally killed someone in one of the most painful, gruesome ways to die… ouch. I wonder if that's a little similar to whatever happened on/to Filament Station.
Simon's continued worry about the welder, asking about him and apologizing and insisting that of course he didn't know what the camera would do, was one of my favorite elements of the entire movie. <3
I was unsure whether Simon, while insisting at first he was 100% innocent, had just compartmentalized away his by-name 'the Butcher', or might have had actual amnesia, or concussion complications from being tossed around like a rag-doll. Again, I LOVE uncertainty & ambiguity in media, and this was such a wonderful element to think about.
I am freaking blown away by how much I loved this movie. Like… what a masterpiece. I knew it was gonna be phenomenal, but I didn't expect it to rock my shit this hard.
Mr. Mark Iplier, the man that you are. <3 I am so extremely happy that I got to experience IR on the big screen! If I could afford it, I'd go see it a second time and a third. What a terrifying, haunting, and so very human work of art.
We watched Markiplier's Iron Lung on Tuesday, while flabbergasted and delighted that a local theater was showing it. I walked out of there totally stunned, with a 1,000 yard stare. What a massive accomplishment. What a thing to witness!
I started watching Mark's videos in 2015, in my mid-twenties, while going through some extensive shit irl, and like many of his viewers I've gotten so much joy, laughs, escapism, scares, and cozy safe feelings from his videos. The Outlast Let's Play was the first game I watched, it still has a super special place in my heart and I re-watch it regularly. (Outlast 2 can fuck off.) It was partly through Mark's videos that I realized I actually really like horror!
And now here we are, and I just watched one of THE best horror movies I've ever had the pleasure to see. And he was in it! And he wrote and directed it and poured his heart and soul into it for three freaking years! Honestly, I almost feel like I watched a close family member achieve this fucking epic feat. That's too parasocial, I know, but I caught myself grinning through the first few minutes of the movie like "that's my younger brother up there!" hahaha. :D
The scares were so good. The humor was understated and well-delivered in a way that 100% fit the atmosphere. The cosmic horror was executed so perfectly, revealing just the right amount of detail without giving it a fully visible face, that it felt like Mark's been personally studying Lovecraft in a dark cave for 100 years.
Random favorite moments (spoilers ahead):
I love love love it when shit remains unresolved like that. I'm a huge fan of not having detailed explanations served up on a silver platter, the way so many modern movies do.
Simon's continued worry about the welder, asking about him and apologizing and insisting that of course he didn't know what the camera would do, was one of my favorite elements of the entire movie. <3
I am freaking blown away by how much I loved this movie. Like… what a masterpiece. I knew it was gonna be phenomenal, but I didn't expect it to rock my shit this hard.
Mr. Mark Iplier, the man that you are. <3 I am so extremely happy that I got to experience IR on the big screen! If I could afford it, I'd go see it a second time and a third. What a terrifying, haunting, and so very human work of art.