Iron Lung: A Deep Dive into the Blood Ocean

SPOILER ALERT.  I will 100% be spoiling the movie as I deep dive (see what I did there?) into the story. 

In order to discuss the film, we have to understand the lore behind the video game that inspired it.

The story takes place in a future where humanity has colonized other planets in our solar system, beginning with Mars.  There are multiple space stations, two of which we get the names of - "Eden" station and "Filament" station. 

An event known as "The Quiet Rapture" occurs, changing life as humanity knows it.  Seemingly in one silent second, planets and millions of stars vanish.  The humans on the space stations are the only survivors.  The cause of The Quiet Rapture is unknown.  There are no witnesses of the event.

Eden is the largest man-made structure left in existence.  Originally the station for Mars, at the time of the game's story there are under 500 humans left on Eden.  This station contains the last trees in the galaxy, relics of a world that no longer exists.  

After the Rapture, the Consolidation of Iron (C.O.I.) is formed - an organization of four space stations and 2 spacecraft, with the goal of protecting what is left of humanity.

Eden attacks Filament station, likely due to a fight for resources, resulting in a 9-day battle that leaves Filament uninhabitable.  Eden is no longer considered part of the C.O.I. after this betrayal, and multiple people are arrested for the destruction of Filament and imprisioned.  These convicts are then later used in the exploration of the mysterious and perilous Blood Moons. 

These Moons are discovered after the Rapture.  These moons seem to have just appeared, and are notable for being covered in a literal ocean of blood.  Specifically, human blood.  

One of them, called AT-5, is thought to have resources that could be vital to the survival of humanity.  The C.O.I. conducts missions to explore AT-5's ocean using small submarines. 

This is where the game takes place - inside a small, crude submarine made to be manned by one person, a claustrophobic metal box referred to as the Iron Lung.  It is manned by a convict, likely someone who was arrested during the attack on Filament, who has been promised freedom if their dive is successful.

Since the Iron Lung needs to survive the pressure of being submerged in a Blood Ocean, the only porthole is sealed to prevent being shattered, and the only way the convict can view the world around him is by taking pictures with a massive radiation camera at the front of the submarine.  It takes grainy, x-ray images - the only way to view objects through the blood. 

This design creates the perfect environment for horror.  The convict, aka the player, must rely only on their manuals, a rough map, coordinates, the x-ray camera, and the sounds from outside the submarine to visualize and navigate the world around them.  The player is effectively sealed in to the Iron Lung to prevent any leaks.  The convict becomes paranoid that the C.O.I. won't be following through on their promise of granting them freedom in exchange for completing the mission (the objective of which is kept from them).

This fear is confirmed upon discovering a message hidden by a previous pilot of the Iron Lung.  It reads: 

"This is not an expedition. It is an execution. When they put you in here, they don’t want you to return. And even if you do, and even if they keep their promises ... what freedom waits for you? A few dying ships in a sea of dead stars?

If there is still hope, it lies beyond the veil. Hope in this void is as illusionary as the starlight. I will choose to breathe my last here at the bottom of an ocean, unseen unheard, and uncontrolled.

They will get their execution.

I will get my freedom."

During the player's mission, they appear to make contact with a massive living being.  At first their camera reveals what appears to be a huge skeleton of the creature, but upon returning to the site, the skeleton is gone.  Later on, it becomes clear that a living monster of the deep is potentially following the craft, and the most chilling x-ray picture reveals a giant eye surrounded by scaly flesh, staring directly into the camera. 

Regardless of how the game is played, the ending is always the same: the monster eventually breaches the hull, destroying the Iron Lung and killing the convict. 

Mark Fischbach's movie follows this same plot, with Mark portraying the isolated convict, Simon, manning the submarine with very little information.  Blamed for the destruction of Filament (unfairly, we later discover) and originally a citizen of Eden, Simon is chosen to pilot the Iron Lung into the ocean on AT-5, with an unclear objective.  The hard-core leader of the mission, Ava, talks to him through a janky speaker system, telling him that once he completes the expedition he will be let go. 

Simon has to learn the navigational system on the fly using physical binders of manuals and a rough map of the seabed.  He appears to be descending into a vast trench.  As he follows the vague path the map outlines, he takes grainy x-ray pictures of unknown objects - hills, rocks, it's difficult to tell for sure. The deeper he gets, the hotter it gets inside the craft, causing condescension to build on the inside of the walls.  As well, an occasional drop of blood falls from the ceiling, causing Simon to worry about a leak. 

After taking a picture of a large skeleton of an unknown creature, and being tossed around by the movement of another living being, the Iron Lung is brought back up to the surface where he tries to convince Ava - through a blurry, bloody porthole window - of the existence of this previously undiscovered lifeform.  Ava and her crew are mostly concerned with the skeleton and retrieving a sample from it, so they attach a device to the front of the submarine and direct Simon to ram the front if the craft into the skeleton.  

Aside from this scene, we are solely with Simon for 98% of the film.  We never leave the Iron Lung (save for flashes of memories, and visions/hallucinations).  The majority of the interaction with other characters happens with audio only, coming through the speaker system.  This is a genius way to achieve world building as the characters talk to each other, and it creates a dynamic where both the main character and the audience begin to question if the voices are always real.  Traveling blind, isolated, trapped, the possibility of madness and hallucinations is established quickly. 

This brings us to the stuff I really want to talk about.  Rather than just reviewing the movie, I'd like to nerd out about the creature(s) and the mythologies that may have inspired it and the entire lore of the game. 

I haven't heard confirmation, since the movie is so new, but my brother and I both saw a heavy influence of Cthulhu in the film.  It added a deeply scary, mysterious, cosmic layer to the Blood Ocean monster.  

Cthulhu, an H.P. Lovecraft character, is a giant cosmic entity, older than the earth.  Lovecraft describes him thus:  "A monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind ... It seemed to be a sort of monster, or symbol representing a monster, of a form which only a diseased fancy could conceive. If I say that my somewhat extravagant imagination yielded simultaneous pictures of an octopus, a dragon, and a human caricature, I shall not be unfaithful to the spirit of the thing. A pulpy, tentacled head surmounted a grotesque and scaly body with rudimentary wings." 

More relevant to "Iron Lung", Cthulhu is said to communicate telepathically, and the very sight of him drives people to madness.  

In the film, after Simon is blown off course and disconnected from Ava and her team, a female voice finally comes through the speaker - the supposed survivor of another submarine mission.  In speaking with her, Simon learns that she (a scientist) and her team stumbled upon an anomaly that she refers to as a Light, and that this Light holds all the answers for humanity's future.  She begins to sound spiritually fanatic, saying "it's meant for us" and that Simon just needs to see it to be able to understand it for himself.  She hints that it may hold the answer of what caused The Quiet Rapture.  She gives him coordinates and he decides to go see it for himself. 

When he gets close, her audio becomes increasingly erratic, and her voice seems to become many voices, and Simon begins to see and hear things that distress him.  In the chaos, Simon experiences a vision or hallucination starting with a great Light piercing the hull of his submarine.  He appears to rise up out of the Blood Ocean, standing waist deep in it, his wrists chained to the depths.  Before him, the colossal head of the monster he has only glimpsed through his radiation camera, leans back and disappears under the red waves.  The sky above is red, and a great eye appears, blood-shot and impossibly huge.  The voice says "I see you". 

Simon realizes that the wire connecting the speaker is cut, meaning the woman's voice was never coming through it.  It seems as though the voice was coming from the monster itself, telepathically communicating to him and drawing him into a trap.  What is unclear is how many monsters there are.  Does the giant eye in the sky belong to a different monster than the one belonging to the skeleton?  Is the monster in the ocean obeying a master?  Or is the eye purely a vision to terrify Simon? 

Speaking of the skeleton, when it mysteriously disappears, we are asked to question if the skeleton was actually a living creature lying in wait.  It is an x-ray camera, after all.  All of Simon's visions, hallucinations, and questioning of reality begin after the first look at the "skeleton".  In other words, the very sight of the creature drives him to madness. 

When we later get clearer photos of the monster, the silhouette of the head certainly brings Cthulhu to mind.  Rather than tentacles, the bottom of the head is many long teeth.  When Simon successfully rams the front of his submarine into what he thinks is the skeleton, the monster is understandably pissed off and nearly destroys him.  This pretty much confirms that the bones were, in fact, of a living being. 

The creator of the game, David Szymanski, has said he is a Christian, and his other games contain religious inspiration too.  When we look at Iron Lung, we can start to see a strong association with the Book of Revelation, the last book in the Christian Bible. 

I could potentially trace my love of horror back to my fascination with the Book of Revelation as a kid.  Adults were perturbed to hear it was my favourite book in the Bible.  It was fantastical, symbolic, scary, and had dragons.  Not at any point did I take it literally; it was another mythological story to enjoy.

The Iron Lung seems to ask the question, what if the Rapture occurred on a cosmic scale rather than just an Earthly one?  What if the Rapture didn't just take Christians, but everyone existing on every habitable planet?  

The Rapture is a phenomenon modern day Christians consider the prelude to End Times, from an interpretation of this passage (1 Thessalonians 4:16–17 — The New King James Version): 

"For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord."

Ironically this passage isn't from Revelation.  But now let's look at the imagery from Revelation that may have inspired Iron Lung and its moons of blood. 

 "I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red,

 and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind.

 The heavens receded like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place."

There we have the sun going out, the stars falling, and the moon turning blood red, followed by the mountains and islands disappearing.  In the game this can be interpreted as the planets and stars vanishing, and the new moons appearing with oceans of blood that have covered all the land.

"The first angel sounded his trumpet, and there came hail and fire mixed with blood, and it was hurled down on the earth. A third of the earth was burned up, a third of the trees were burned up, and all the green grass was burned up.

 The second angel sounded his trumpet, and something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood,

 a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed."

This one is pretty clear!  The Earth and all the planets are destroyed, and with them all plant and animal life.  The sea turns to blood.  The mention of something like a mountain but ablaze makes one think of an asteroid.  Starfall. 

 "The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water—

 the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter.

 The fourth angel sounded his trumpet, and a third of the sun was struck, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars, so that a third of them turned dark. A third of the day was without light, and also a third of the night."

Here we have a catastrophic starfall that turns the waters bitter and kills people who drink from it.  The light of the sun and moon and stars is destroyed. 

  "The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from the sky to the earth. The star was given the key to the shaft of the Abyss."

An interesting mystery in the game is the presence of a Light beneath the ocean of blood, a Light that the scientist expedition and eventually Simon are drawn to by the Cthulhu-esque monster.  A Light that, in the game, is captured on the x-ray camera.  A Light of mysterious origin and matter that seems to draw lifeforms to it.  Perhaps this is a star, perhaps the star that landed in the Abyss - aka the trench Simon is forced to explore. 

Also in the ocean of AT-5 lies a mysterious humming monolith.  It does not give off light like the other anomaly, but it gives off an energetic hum.  What if this was the second star, Wormwood?  

 In Revelation, these two stars begin the destruction of all life.  The Light, or the star(s) is hinted at being the cause of the Quiet Rapture.  The "how" opens the mind to many possibilities.  We could explore the possibility of alternate dimensions or  timelines here; portals and wormholes.  

  "The rest of mankind who were not killed by these plagues still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not stop worshiping demons, and idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood—idols that cannot see or hear or walk.

 Nor did they repent of their murders, their magic arts, their sexual immorality or their thefts."

This bit is interesting when considering the survivors left on the space stations.  It is hinted at in the movie that the people aboard Eden may have turned to an almost cult-like existence, placing their importance and the importance of their relics above everyone else.  They dare to destroy the people they should instead be uniting with.  They resort to murder and destruction, in spite of End Times being upon them. 

  "They [two witnesses expected to prophesy during the End Times] have power to shut up the heavens so that it will not rain during the time they are prophesying; and they have power to turn the waters into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they want.

 Now when they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the Abyss will attack them, and overpower and kill them."

I feel like the roles of the two witnesses could be the two submarines, the one carrying Simon and the one carrying the team of scientists.  Both try their best to explain what they are seeing and experiencing to the station who deployed them, and both are overpowered and killed by the beast from the Abyss.  Of course, the part about the witnesses turning the waters into blood doesn't work with this theory. 

  "The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him ...

   ... woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has gone down to you! He is filled with fury, because he knows that his time is short.”

This brings to mind the great mysterious beast in the Abyss of the blood ocean.  Or perhaps the creature belonging to the great eye is the dragon, Satan, and the monsters hunting Simon are the dragon's demons.  Revelation continues to describe both the dragon and the beast as separate beings, the dragon being the one who gives authority to the beast.  In fact, it describes several beasts - which rings true as it is unclear just how many beasts there are at the bottom of the blood ocean.

The book describes the eventual worship of both the dragon and the beasts.  One can envision a future where the people of Eden, perhaps, begin to worship and revere these alien beings the way many worshipped the great Cthulhu.  Perhaps in an attempt to find favour and avoid destruction, or perhaps as a symptom of madness. 

Revelation describes seven angels with seven golden bowls that contain God's wrath.  These seven bowls will be emptied at the end of time.  

The first bowl causes boils and sores to break out on all people.  In the film, when the blood from the ocean comes in contact with Simon's skin, it begins to eat away at his flesh, eventually starting to consume him, beginning with boils and sores. 

The second and the third bowls cause all the waters of the earth to turn into blood. 

  "The second angel poured out his bowl on the sea, and it turned into blood like that of a dead person, and every living thing in the sea died.

 The third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of water, and they became blood."

The fourth bowl causes the sun to burn people with intense heat.  This reminds me of the nearly unbearable heat Simon experiences the deeper he goes into the trench. 

The fifth bowl plunges the world into darkness.  The suns and the stars vanish, leaving the survivors on the space stations to float in a sea of darkness - only dimly lit by the light of stars that no longer exist.  Eventually those lights will fade, too. 

The sixth bowl causes the great river Euphrates to dry up, and impure spirits that "looked like frogs" came out of the mouths of the dragon and the beasts.  Interestingly, a nickname for the mysterious creature caught on the x-ray camera in the game is "the Frog". 

Then the seventh and final bowl brings a colossal earthquake, with lightning and thunder.  Simon experiences an earthquake that throws him off course.  The lightning and thunder appear in his vision of the great eye.

So what can we take away from this?  Perhaps it is as simple as a creative mind being inspired by the imagery of the Biblical apocalypse.  Perhaps "Iron Lung" portraying End Times at a cosmic scale allows the player/viewer to imagine a continuation beyond the story of Simon the convict.  Is there hope for what is left of humanity?  Will they experience what Revelation promises - a new heaven and a new earth, and within this earth the tree of life?  Will a faction of humanity bow to the eldritch terror at the bottom of the ocean, while others fight its influence? 

The film offers a sliver of hope at the end.  Simon gives his life to ensure the survival of data that could prove life-saving for the last of humanity.  We don't know what the data contains, but we know it's all we have after the encounter with the possible fallen star and the giant telepathic entity. 

Both Markiplier and David Szymanski are able to achieve what all great horror stories should:  the opportunity for the viewer's imagination to fill in the gaps and create their own story.