Iron Lung (2026). No, the ocean of blood is never explained, why would it be.

I just flew in from seeing Iron Lung, and boy are my lungs tired.

I know nothing about the original Iron Lung video game, but apparently it’s a sci-fi horror short game set on board a submarine in an ocean of blood. No, the ocean of blood is never explained, why would it be.

The kid had enjoyed YouTube playthroughs of the game and said “let’s go see the pic” and I went “why not.”

Kid hadn’t actually played the game (bought long before and in the Steam guilt pile), but did play it before we went.

Tiny cinema screen, four rows of seats, maybe 30 people there for the midday showing? Six separate polite suggestions to TURN YOUR FUCKING PHONE OFF PLEASE THANKS.

Iron Lung is a single-set one-room presentation — a bottle episode. It’s claustrophobia and fear.

There’s a thing video games do where they don’t explain shit and you get disjointed fragments of lore as you go and basically have to assemble the story yourself. In writing or film previously, this was conventionally called “experimental.”

I think we can say the experiment was a success, because that’s how Iron Lung told its story and kid said it over-explained the lore. The audience is fine with the disjointed nonlinear approach now. It’s mainstream.

I didn’t understand most of what was going on, but it sure was pretty. Excellent cinematography, every shot was a good photo. Soundtrack is fantastic, especially with cinema sound. This film is about atmosphere, and it delivers.

Other reviews say the film drags in places. We didn’t find this at all. I was confused, but I was never bored. It keeps up its two hours fine.

(Longer than the hour or so it takes to play the original game, by the way.)

You know how video games have puzzles you have to solve from objects to hand? Iron Lung does a few of these, like when the main character [SPOILER]s the [SPOILER] so he’s got light to see by. Thankfully it just does them. But it’s very video game.

Also, Iron Lung 200% delivers on MORE FAKE BLOOD THAN HAS EVER BEEN IN A MOVIE BEFORE. You get your fake blood’s worth, I assure you.

Anyway! We enjoyed it. Dunno if I’d see it again, I don’t watch movies, like, ever. But as a first production by a YouTube guy, it’s an incredible artistic success. Also, the creators are gonna have small but non-trivial dumptrucks full of gold backing up to their houses, because this $3 million film is an international hit!

You know what happens next, right. Every executive bozo in Hollywood will go, “OPTION ME THE LEAST COMPREHENSIBLE SCIFI HORROR GAME ON STEAM. NO, I CAN UNDERSTAND THE BLURB. GO LESS COMPREHENSIBLE.” They’ll give tens of millions to TV commercial directors and up and coming starlets, and it’ll all suuuuuck.

So a golden era of deserving weirdos getting Hollywood money for at least a moment. Should be awesome.

Iron Lung is in the cinemas for about ten minutes, so get in this week while you can.