Iron Lung
bittersweet_ta rated 7/10
First thoughts, I was thoroughly entertained. Mark is a great actor, this set design was on point, and the highlight of the film is definitely the camera angles. This film had a ton of funky camera angles, and I loved a lot of them. Cool frame within frames, leading lines, whoever was the DP definitely had experience and did a great job. Some scenes also involved stunts, like Mark getting launched across the Iron Lung and him experiencing free fall when they dropped him into the blood ocean. These VFX scenes were very well done, surprisingly well executed in an indie film. They really made the Iron Lung video game real with the set, the camera mechanic was really cool and overall I was immersed in the world they created. Now onto one big flaw… simply, I didn’t get the plot. I understand how the game works and I’ve even seen some video essays talking about the plot of the Iron Lung video game, but the movie started to lose me once Markiplier teleported to the blood dimension. I just didn’t get it, did he die? Did he get put into an alternate dimension? And the ending I was also lost. From other audience members, I overheard that the ending was Mark’s character, Simon, being influenced by the blood monsters but ultimately snapping out of it, sacrificing himself to get the files from SM-8 to the surface so mankind can use the information and repopulate. The question is… what was so special about SM-8? I didn’t quite understand that, making me not understand its significance in the final. Also, although the blood dimension scene was very cool, I didn’t understand what it meant and how it fits into the movie, did he teleport physically? Was that his imagination? I don’t know, I’ll have to watch a breakdown or something. This isn’t a dealbreaker, and I still had a blast watching this film, but the plot flew right over my head. Overall, I really enjoyed this and this is an amazing first film for Markiplier. He acted well, directed and edited well. He obviously put a lot passion and work into this, it just sucks that the plot didn’t work for me. Still this gets a 7/10