“Iron Lung”: Markiplier Takes the Big Screen
Illustration by Nick Latham
Many of us grew up during the golden era of YouTube. A time when YouTubers were producing tons of content in a week, and YouTube was the most active social media platform. Personally, I would fall asleep to someone’s channel every night. Many YouTubers fell off or switched platforms after this big YouTube boom ended, but one creator that stayed consistent and on top is Markiplier. Markiplier has been consistently making content of video game play-throughs for years and has accumulated over 38 million subscribers. With the empire he has built and the resources it has provided him, the YouTuber decided to take on the challenge of creating his own film based on an indie video game he played on his channel. He was backed by no major film companies and took on acting for the first time, starring in the film as the main character. It was a passion project that slowly grew from fan support and ended up being shown in theaters such as AMCs around the country. In just its opening weekend, it has already tripled its 3 million dollar budget. This was a crazy phenomenon to witness. As a fan of Markiplier since fourth grade, it is truly something special.
I went to my local theater three days after the film’s release to see if this YouTuber-made film was up to par. I have to say, for what it was, I think this film was phenomenal. Critiques I have for the film could easily be explained by inexperience and budget. The talent that Markiplier showed as a first-time filmmaker and actor was incredible. Considering the origin of this film, I walked out of the theater feeling far more impressed than I thought I would ever be.
That being said, I do want to talk about some of the shortcomings in the film. I think that its biggest downfall is readability. Without prior knowledge of the game it is based on, viewers would be very confused by just the concept of the film. This film started as a small passion project, therefore, I believe that Markiplier and the writers assumed that the only audience would be prior lovers of the game. The movie grew so much that that was not the case. There is only a brief sentence or two at the beginning that references the context of the movie.
In addition, the backstory of the character, the timeline, and the main villain are also not clear in the movie. The film is supposed to have an unreliable narrator, and I believe it was meant to be a bit open-ended, but certain parts were just confusing. Partly because of audio and visual issues, such as muffled dialogue and shots that were too dark to read. The entire film takes place inside one setting (besides two very quick shots outside the submarine that were visibly done with green screen). I believe this is because of budget constraints with production design and other factors. I think if they had just a few scenes outside of the submarine that were more than quick cuts, readability would have been much better.
On the note of only having one setting for the majority of the film, because of this one very small and very cramped set, the cinematography felt repetitive in some parts. For instance, there was an abundance of insert shots in the film. They worked at times, but at others, felt stale or unnecessary. With more experience, the editing for the film could have been cut down by at least 20 minutes.
However, I was honestly pleasantly surprised by the VFX in the film. Some shots fell short, but some looked fantastic. Knowing the budget of the film, I was thoroughly impressed. In fact, I was able to speak with one of the artists who worked on the film, a friend of mine. He told me that during production, the VFX company that worked on the project was struggling with the resources they had to complete the film. After telling Markiplier, he went out and bought the company a renderfarm. Hearing this story really highlights to me why this film was able to be as successful as it was.
Markiplier may have room to grow as a filmmaker, but for a first run, this movie was incredibly impressive. It was all possible because of the empire he had grown after years of content-making on YouTube, and growing an audience based on genuineness. As a long-time subscriber, I can’t help being proud of him, but I am also proud of what he is showing Hollywood. “Iron Lung” is on a roll at the box offices, and it is showing Hollywood that the consumer doesn’t just want films from giant production companies. We want art, we want indie filmmakers, we want to see what small artists can produce. I can’t wait to see what Markiplier does next, and I can’t wait to see more smaller films at the theaters.