One of last year's scariest horror games is getting a movie starring YouTuber Markiplier

Iron Lung
(Image credit: David Szymanski)

YouTuber Markiplier is making and starring in a feature-length movie based on Iron Lung, one of last year's most pleasant surprises in the indie horror game space.

As reported by Deadline, Markiplier is directing, starring, and self-financing the Iron Lung movie, which is based on - you guessed it - his own screenplay adaptation of the game. Caroline Rose Kaplan, best-known for HBO's The Plot Against America, is also starring. The movie is being scored by Andrew Hulshult, who's written scores for several first-person shooters including Doom Eternal, Dusk, and Quake Champions.

2022's Iron Lung, developed and published by David Szymanski, is an absolutely dread-inducing little horror gem that takes place entirely from within a claustrophobic submarine. Decades after all known stars and habitable planets mysteriously vanished from the universe, the player character, a condemned prisoner, is ordered to investigate a mysterious blood ocean by a team of researchers looking for any remaining natural resources. If you come back with useful information, you'll be acquitted, but that of course involves surviving a blood ocean on a dead moon. 

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Markiplier himself shared a brief teaser announcing the movie. In it, we get a perspective from inside a submarine that's diving and seemingly spinning as an unseen control person is heard giving updates from a gravelly speaker. 

The plot of the Iron Lung movie is still unknown. It'll be interesting to see how closely it follows the game, where you're left to deal with the threat of a collapsing submarine as well as the horrors lurking beneath the blood ocean's surface.

Szymanski has also been "heavily involved" in the production of the film, as he explained in a tweet on the heels of its announcement. He's helping with the script and pre-production, and will even have "a small cameo." 

"I couldn't be happier with how it's turning out so far," Szymanski said. "This is going to be something very special, and very wild. And for those of you asking, yes this is intended as a theatrical feature!" 

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Jordan Gerblick

After scoring a degree in English from ASU, I worked as a copy editor while freelancing for places like SFX Magazine, Screen Rant, Game Revolution, and MMORPG on the side. Now, as GamesRadar's west coast Staff Writer, I'm responsible for managing the site's western regional executive branch, AKA my apartment, and writing about whatever horror game I'm too afraid to finish.