This review may contain spoilers!
Iron Lung is an adaptation of David Szymanski's video game of the same name. A cosmic horror set in a futuristic dying universe, this film follows Simon, a convict set inside a sealed submersible and forced to scour the depths of a moon with an ocean made of blood.
Iron Lung is the sort of horror film that knows how to draw you in. We are just as trapped as Simon in this iron box, confined and desperate for answers. This film works hard to impose a growing sense of dread. It starts slow, a creak in the hull, an eerie picture on the camera feed or a droplet of blood from above. But the film gears us up towards danger, makes us wonder what else lies within the depths, knowing that we can only ponder. The deeper Simon goes, the more we are confronted with hallucinations, invasive voices and visions of eldritch bloody beings. Escape becomes less certain, and hope is like a guttering flame. Watching Simon wrestle with his own crisis of conscience, while his very environment preys upon him, is a powerful yet demented setting. The sense of mystery that is cultivated around the 'creature' that preys upon Simon, living in the blood, is well handled. In fact, this monstrous, oppressive entity is a great horror antagonist.
It is rare to see a film where one setting is what we are limited to. The why behind this seems clear: how do you keep such a film interesting when it comes to style? The visual style never seems to be a hurdle for Mark Fischbach however, he takes what amounts to little more than a tube and turns it into a cloying, claustrophobic experience. The intensity of the close-ups and the deliberate placement of the camera certainly helped that sense of mounting dread I described earlier.
Troy Baker, who played David, is a nice break in tone from a character perspective; Baker employs a bit of gruff macho camaraderie to try to influence Simon, which is amusing. Elsie Lovelock, who voiced SM-8 Research Lead and The Speaker, is a powerful force for the sense of inescapable horror in this film; Lovelock's voice work will cut you to the bone and has this drowning sensation to it that is extremely effective.
However, the best performance came from Caroline Kaplan, who played Ava. This is a role with quite a perceived level of power over Simon across the film; she is the jailor, and he is the prisoner. She is a tough, militaristic presence who commands and attempts to control Simon. She has a bend towards duty and shows little compassion for Simon at first. If anything, there is real venom between the two, but chiefly from Kaplan's side. As the film goes on, we start to see Ava as a figure with the capacity to change. Kaplan allows her to connect with Simon and show hope. We get a sense that she wants out of this wretched existence as much as he does and is willing to risk her station to get salvation. Though in a more minor role, Kaplan feels like a character with both feet firmly planted in the Iron Lung universe.
Iron Lung is an interesting piece of horror; it does the fear element well, but it really struggles to pull you into the world it occupies. I found the moments in which the film touches upon the Quiet Rapture, the Eden faction or even Simon's terrorist background to be entirely debilitating to the story. The world feels quite convoluted; it wants to be perceived as a difficult puzzle, but that doesn't make this especially palatable for the audience. It doesn't hold a sense of mystery like the horrors below the ocean of blood; it just feels like a clunky bit of sci-fi cobbled together to adorn the greater end result. Even the mission around sending down prisoners holds little sense of purpose; we get the sense it has something to do with saving the universe or gathering food, but it gets a bit aimless. There is also a long portion within the middle that feels like a montage of travel. It creates a needless hitch in the pacing that could have otherwise been smoothed out.
The editing across this whole thing takes a blender to what is quite a decent piece of cinematography, janky and disruptive cutting make Iron Lung difficult to follow when things get frantic. I also think the sound mixing here shows how indie this feature is; the way sounds trample over one another can entirely ruin a scene. The score for the film wasn't especially memorable, a hollow droning that doesn't heighten the sense of fear much at all.
Mark Fischbach, who played Simon, just seems a bit too polished to work as the bedraggled lead prisoner of the film; Fischbach has designed something brilliant here, but his more limited range gets in the way of what could have been a great leading character.
A perfectly commendable horror film that is absolutely changing the game for indie cinema. I would give Iron Lung a 6/10.
