263: Iron Lung (2026)

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Go ahead and laugh, you guys. Find the final little glasses of business. At Dead Meat. Welcome to the Dead Meat podcast. You're horror safe, Habe, and I'm Chelsea. I'm James. We're married and we like to get scared together. Yeah. We like to swim in oceans of human blood together. Yeah. Because we're talking about iron lung. Iron lung. Dude, I feel like I was going to make some joke. About being in an iron lung? Yeah. I'm sick again. Going to an iron lung for a cough? I'll take anything. Honestly, I was thinking earlier today about how I bet his ears popped real good when he gets lowered down into the ocean. And I was just thinking how good that would feel right now. All my ears to pop like that. Yeah, it's been a rough couple of weeks at Dead Meat. I was fucking sick for a whole week. I think we just keep passing an illness back and forth. Yeah, just keep passing it because I was sick and you were fine and then right as I recovered. Well, I got sick and then you got sick and then I got sick. You were sick first? Yes, remember, I was, or wait. I don't even know. We just keep passing it. MK's sick though. Producer MK. A lot of our team is out sick. It's rough. It took us out for like, it took me out for a week and it fucked up the schedule. Yeah, so I'm sorry if my voice sounds really little husky. He said, yeah, dude, you sound like a sickly little 18th century Englishman. I mean, I feel like Linton from Wuthering Heights right now. From the part that won't get adapted in the movie. From the part not in the movie. I'm just a little sickly boy. Yeah, but we're going to power through it. We're talking about iron lung, baby. Markiplier's phenomenon sweeping the indie film. Hollywood is so afraid. Hollywood's so over baby. I just can't take anything seriously that talks about Hollywood as an entity because I've heard, you know, when the Winnie the Pooh movie gets announced, people be like Hollywood's out of ideas. Hollywood's out of ideas. From this indie British horror film being made. Yeah, well, let's talk a little bit about the kind of box office run this thing had because it is really impressive. And we don't mean to discount it. Oh, I'm not discounting anything. It is so fucking impressive. Mark should be so proud of himself. Mark, a.k.a. Markiplier. Three, two, one, Mark is my name. I've talked about this before on my Monday morning live streams just about how impressive it is, but also how you can't replicate it. You can't expect this to be the new normal going forward because no one is Markiplier. No one has his fan base plus his desire to make art and his and well, his drive really. He talks about how it's unhealthy, the amount of work that he put into this movie. I mean, it's been development for three years. Sure. And he has just been relentless in getting it done. Not many people can do what he did. And then the people who can probably don't have his fan base. I mean, he's at like 37 million subscribers right now. We're at seven after nine years. Like you just like you can't compare it's other channels to him. I think that's what's been driving me a little nuts about the conversations surrounding this movie is I've seen a lot of talk that, oh, this is a this is a new model for indie filmmakers. There's a new way to get movies made or this is like what we can expect it. No, this I feel like is such a specific case study. Because of the things you just said, it's like who he is, his audience, the resources he has available. It's it's just so it's such a specific thing that I don't it's not replicable at scale. In any way, and I'm not just saying that like the only reason this succeeded is because of his fan base. No, no, no, no. Was a big driving force of it. But other people with those numbers with that subscriber base wouldn't be able to do this because I don't think they would churn out an interesting product. But what it what it does show, though, and this is what I think is really interesting is I think we've talked before on the podcast about the kind of the death of movie going audiences drawn to a movie because of an actor. That's not really a thing that exists anymore. Obviously, people are fans of actors. But I think Timmy's putting in a good case with Marty Supreme that movie wouldn't have done well with anyone else in it. Sure. Timmy Chalamet. But compare now to like 15, 20 years ago, like a capital M movie star was so different than it is now. They held Will Smith or Jim Carrey. Oh, yeah. Right. I mean, you go to the 90s. You're yeah, you're a wash. But those are just like the actors themselves. We're such the draw. And I think that something like this is comparable in that way and is a big reason why this succeeded because people really like him and did want to go. I think whatever it was going to be, people were going to go see it. Sure. I mean, in that regard, it's almost more the filmmaker. It's it's, you know, the Christopher Nolan. It's sure Jordan Peele. Yeah. It's the person making it. Yeah. That is the driving force and the interest behind it. With Mark, it's interesting because it would have been so easy for him to just make a real simple movie, just a save the cat screenplay structure, make something simple, easy popcorn, entertaining, appealing to the masses. Instead, what he does is make this weird, surreal, like cosmic horror movie that's over two hours long based on an indie game where you it's it's math. It's just coordinates plotting out and he made play it. We did. Yeah. And he made that movie and it's it is so like well made for what it is. We're going to talk all about it. And I think Mark is a mature enough man to to hear any complaints. Chief, it's too long. It's, you know, it's too long. The middle section drags and because like I said, it's over two hours. I don't think it needs to be. But I do think it looks amazing. The fact that it is a visually interesting movie, even though it takes place entirely within a single submarine the entire time. Amazing. His performance. It's a one man show like there are some other and it was a wise choice to add these other actors, especially the voice acting. My first note on the page of my notes is oh, they're giving him someone to talk to. Yes. And I thought that was a really smart adaptation in the game. You don't get that. It's just you're just the player character. But it still is primarily a one man show and he is good. He is a good actor in it, which is I didn't know what to expect. I haven't watched his other stuff. I know that he's done narrative things, other series and everything. So this is not him just like going from being a streamer to making a feature length film. There are steps in between where he is home to skill, which I think is also crucial and is necessary for anyone to do looking to make this kind of transition. But yeah, he could have taken an easy route and he didn't. And I respect the hell out of that. And it's paid off so much. He put in three million dollars. That's the other thing is he had three million dollars of his own money to make a movie. Yeah, that's what I said earlier. Yeah, exactly. And that is not something that like most people have. That's a lot of money, man. That's so much money to just risk on something you don't know is going to turn out because movies don't always make a return. But he had enough faith in himself to do it and it panned out because it is currently sitting at 50 million dollars box office worldwide. Incredible, incredible stuff. And he deserves that return. I think he gave his crew a bonus because it overperformed so much. So like he gave everyone who worked on the movie more money. That doesn't happen. That never fucking happens. It's like you got your paycheck. You got what you were agreed to and so fuck you. I'm reaping the profits. Like that's amazing, dude. Yeah. So couldn't be happier for him. Yeah, I also really admire the instinct to adapt a game that has next to no story. I think it would be so much easier if he had just picked a game that already has. Outlast. Lore. There's a fucking outlast is a movie that you play through, you know, something like that. Or what was the summary or the the oil rigging one? Oh, yeah, yeah. I can't remember, but the other oil. We're around like an oil rig and it was like a nice four hour game that we sat there and played all of nice simple story. Turn that into a movie. You're done. Yeah. But yeah, he took something without much of a story. Yeah, the game itself, which again we played is an hour long. And there's yeah, no story. I mean, there's the setup of you are sent to this planet where it's just an ocean of blood and you're a pilot of the submarine. You're a convict. So you're your convict conscripted into it. Yeah. And you're lowered into the ocean. You can't see anything because you're at such high pressure in the ocean depths. So there's no windows or anything. The only way you can see outside of your submarine is by taking still photos with the camera mounted to the front, which is really creepy when you see what pictures pop up. It's a really cool premise. But besides that, it's like here are coordinates and a map go to these sites and take pictures. That's all it is. And that's all it is. And I did that and Chelsea sat there and watched me and it is not an interesting game to watch someone play. It's not an interesting game to watch. I would just be like, honey, we're at the next one and she would look up like, oh, okay. Look at the nice, very nice honey. Yes. I would go back and then get the shit scared out of me by the ending because I was not paying attention. I'm glad that they changed the ending. That would have been very funny though. If the end of the movie was just a giant fish. Giant angler fish crashing through the ship because that's what is in the game. You get to that last point and right as you go to take the picture, just the fish crashes through and then it smash cuts the Iron Lung title card. That's it. But yeah, I had a fun time playing the game, but it really is just like going to the coordinates and it's kind of like, yeah, avoiding the walls. You can't see as the radar like beeps at you. That's all it is. There are sometimes when like you hear a noise, you might take a picture and see like an eyeball. That was creepy. Yeah, the giant eye. That's scary. Giant eyeball was real creepy. The sub starts to fill up with some blood water or a fire happens that you can put out, but I don't think it really impacts gameplay. It's just, I mean, it's an indie. It's India's fuck. Yeah. Like it looks real low polygon count, but we played it as part of research. Now I had seen this movie at the premiere. I went back in December to see this movie and I have also talked about this on the Monday morning live stream. So I will just be upfront about this. I fell asleep. That is not an indictment of the movie. Here are other movies I fell asleep during on my first watch. The witch knows for rotu, Mandy, and Mandy. Guess what? Those three movies fucking rule, dude, and are among my favorite movies that I have seen, but they are all kind of sleepy movies. They're a little sleepy. They're a little sleepy. And if you're tired, the first half of Mandy, yeah, it was the first half. The second half woke me the fuck up. Yeah, and you can't sleep through the second half of Mandy. Gretzl, you still haven't seen it, right? No, I know. We got to watch that one. Yeah. Well, it's the most prog rock movie ever. I also snoozed in us for a little bit. Yeah. Because we watched it. We saw it after a day at Universal theme park. Day at Universal, full day. Yeah. So if you're tired and you're getting into these vibes where it's just like dark and- It's cozy. It's cozy. Yeah. It's a compliment, man. Yeah. It's a cozy, like, vibes-based movie. And so is this one, especially with the undulating flash of the camera as he takes it and just the sound design of being in a submarine. It was nice and warm. Yeah, there's a- And I fell asleep a little bit. There's a rhythm to it. Yes. Definitely a sleepy horror movie. But that happened to me in December, and then I was like, fuck, I need to see this movie again because I want to be able to judge it properly. I missed a lot of it, actually. Turns out, turns out I missed a lot of it. When you told me what you slept through, I was like, what the fuck? You must have been so confused. I was so, I was so tired. It was also at Alamo Draft House, and Mark was there and was like, you guys can order whatever you want. So me and the Willems' who I was seeing it with just ordered like five food things each and two drinks. So like, I was satiated. I was nice and cozy, dude. It was, it was hopeless for me. That was back before Alamo decided to go to the app for ordering. Okay, speak this, this relates to a gripe I have, and this is not Markiplier's fault. It's not your fault, Mark. But Jesus Christ, the audience, we were with the most badly behaved audience. It was bad. It was, I think we were the only people in that theater who didn't know each other. Yes. And everyone else was like a 20-year-old kid. The couple next to us were like, scooped into each other, talking the whole time. Talking like it's their living room. They were like, just commenting on the movie like, why would, why do you think, do you think he's going to go do this? See, I told you he shouldn't have done that. Eventually I had to, I had to be like, hey, could you please stop talking? And to their credit, those kids stopped talking after I said that. They were probably scared of this old man with a white beard yelling at him. But that was a bad crowd. People on their phones, I kept seeing the bright screen. And it's probably an audience of people that. Are there for Markiplier? Yeah. Go see the Markiplier movie. And what's so funny is this movie is very much a patience tester. And I think his audience maybe was struggling a little bit with it. Which is also why I think this movie is very cool because it's like, you know, not just spoon feeding some stuff where it's like this will make kids happy. Exactly, dude. He could have gone such a different route and maybe made more money just based on like, oh, it's just bring all your friends. This is not necessarily a bring all your friends movie because some of your friends are going to be like, what the fuck are we watching? This guy in a sub take pictures for two hours. I am glad that we played the game though. Just having the very brief lore summary at the beginning of the game was really helpful for the movie. I love the narration because they basically spell it out for you in the movie. And I don't know who's doing the narration. It's not him. Is it? I don't remember. Because I know he can he does like some voice acting. So we can do some voices. I don't know if that's him being like doing like a real badass voice. But it's a. It's a lot of voice actors in the movie, which is a cool thing. To see people whose primary occupation is voice actor and like in like a movie movie. Because often like voice actors are the first people to get replaced. Yeah. If it's an animated movie adaptation of anything. So it's get the bigger name. Right. Yeah, I thought I'm the subject of the cast. I don't know who did the voice of the narration setting up the beginning where it's talking about in in this universe. All the planets and stars have mysteriously just died all of a sudden in an event known as the Quiet Rapture. And so the only humans left are those who were aboard spaceships and star cruisers and stuff. So they're looking for resources to continue the human race. And that's why they go to this moon that has a a it's just ocean the blood. Moon wide ocean of blood. And they're sending this convict down to search for question mark resources. They even even says like it's not clear in the game and even at the beginning of this movie. He's like, what is it you want me to find you haven't told me. It's just like straight up MacGuffin go find the thing that'll help us continue the human race. But that's the premise is they're in space. There's no stars or planets left anymore. Yeah, the only starlight is dead stars. It's the light that's coming from dead stars now dead stars. Yeah, like it's a cool creepy premise. It adds to the feeling of just existential dread cosmic horror, you know, the end of everything. Like he's a convict because he was, I believe, part of a group that wound up burning the last tree. It's it's hard. I wasn't 100% sure what was going on in that storyline. And honestly, the last third of the movie is I don't know what the fuck was happening. It's confusing. And sometimes it is hard to understand the words that they are saying because a lot of the dialogue is coming over a intentionally tinny speaker that's hanging off the side of the ship. But yes, I'm a subject of the cast. The voice acting is phenomenal. I really want to give props to Elsie Lovelock, who is the voice of the main person who is interacting with the whole time. And she even she has like a messed up face when he goes up. She has like a scarred half face. Is that Elsie Lovelock or is Elsie Lovelock the other the other voice is El Lamont. OK. Yes, I believe so. I'm pretty sure I think Elsie Lovelock is like the big the voice towards the end. Like the I thought that was El Lamont. I don't know because there's Elsie and El. Elsie Lovelock is the voice of the speaker. El Lamont is the voice of the whisper. So that doesn't clarify anything. But I feel like the whisper is the one near the end. And the speaker is the one talking to him throughout. And it's like Convict. OK. You know, and I mean, they're both great. They're both very good at this and like really set the tone. You really just enjoy listening to them. It gives Mark a lot to work off of, even though it's just a voice. And yeah, it's fantastic. A lot of other voices in here. I think Jack Septic guy has a cameo. Alana Pierce is a voice in there. I saw Troy Baker. Troy Baker is here. Yeah. Micah Midget does additional voices and we know her. So really cool. Yeah, just like voice acting cast. And it makes sense because like I said, Mark is also a voice actor and knows these people. But it's mostly him. It's mostly him. Yeah. Yeah. It is impressive to like you said earlier, the fact that this entire thing takes place in this very small enclosed space. But there's enough novelty in the way that it's shot. Like it doesn't feel like they went, okay, we need to save time, money. Here's some fixed places we can put the camera and all the coverage of the movie kind of looks the same. Yeah. There's not like five set ups and it's like runs through the movie and set up one, set up two, set up three, cut them together. No, like each shot feels unique, interesting. Does the hell out of a rack focus? I'll tell you that. Yeah. There are some real good rack focuses in this movie. There's one that goes from like his eye in the foreground to like the console table way in the background and it's really cool. Yeah. The lighting is great. It's mostly from the gadgets and gizmos and readings and everything on his console and the readouts. It's great. The replication of the game is impressive because I saw it initially. Then we played the game and when the game booted up, I was like, oh, fuck. This is just actually what it is. This is what it is. And then we see it again. Like, wow, this is like a one to one. Yeah, it looks exactly like the. It's really impressive. Yeah. Yeah. So like any fans of the game are going to be satisfied. They're going to feel seen and spoken to because like he loyally. I mean, it's got to be one of the most successful video game adaptations. Right. As far as what? As far as like feel tea to the game. Yeah. Or just how well it pulls it off. Yeah, I think so. It's accurate while adding a bunch because like we said, the game doesn't have a lot. But in this, they, you know, he's down there for a little bit doing his thing and they end up after he sees a skeleton with the camera, they pull the sub up and you actually get to see other people through the porthole, which is great. But they keep them at a distance. They keep them through the porthole. We are never, we never leave the sub. We see them from within the sub. Yeah. The only time we're not in the submarine is in these flashbacks. Yeah. Which again, I apologize. Like this is not going to be the podcast where I have a ton of answers for you. We're not going to be able to explain what happened to you. Because I went and I was, I thought, okay, surely people have figured out what all of this means or what was and no, like every Reddit discussion I found was everyone still. I think we're in the stage of everyone collectively trying to figure out what the fuck happens at the end. So I don't, I don't have any answers. Maybe we'll come to some together as we discuss it. Yeah, possibly. Or maybe we can just have Mark on the podcast and he can tell us what the fuck happened. I would love that. Yeah. I mean, I am acting, I am trying to make that happen. I am out to his people. I want to have him here in this room. I want to talk to him about making this movie. And, you know, I'm more interested in the production side of things, but we can also talk about the lore and everything. So I'm sure people are interested in it, but I think it's a worthwhile discussion to have, especially in light of its massive success. Again, like 50 million dollars, not every movie comes out and makes that man. And here's like this tiny little indie movie that wasn't even supposed to have a wide release. But because fans spoke out so loudly wanting it, it spread to like thousands of theaters in hundreds of countries. It's nuts. I don't know, hundreds, but a lot of countries. Yeah. Yeah. It's so cool for it to happen. I don't know if we go through the movie beat by beat. Do you have enough notes to do that? Because like I have some notes. I have notes, but I can't fucking read them because. Taking notes in the theaters real hard. And it's a really dark movie. Yes. So I would. What would happen is I couldn't see shit. And then he would take a picture and I'd be like, yeah, because the white flash. Every time he takes the picture. So it's just like writing what you can while that's happening. These notes are not legible. I'll try my best. Yeah. Well, his name is Simon. Hello, my name is Simon. Yeah. Yeah. Reference for the kids. Yeah. Oh, I like that the very beginning it's established that the ship is called a hemorrhover. Oh, I didn't catch that. Yeah, because he's looking at the manual. Oh, he moved like blood. Yeah, which I thought was a cool thing. Oh, it's in the manual that says that. Okay. It's called the SM eight, right? No, SM eight is what he finds in the ocean. Oh, he's piloting the SM 13 that is nicknamed the iron lung. And yeah, he's he's exploring this moon. I just going to have to go off the Wikipedia because thankfully leave it to fucking. Markiplier fans is a very detailed plot discussion. I also like that the beginning of this movie is very good at visually communicating what all the controls on the ship do and what the controls mean, like the flashing lights. And you kind of start to, I think, context clues put together if a light on this part of the dashboard, so to speak, is flashing, he's about to run into something or there's something next to the ship. When you play the game, you load it up and there's a whole page explaining this where it's like, you use this to go forward, you use this to turn, you don't get that luxury in a movie. And I just think this does a really good job of showing how all that stuff works. So you get a sense of like what the fuck's even going on if you haven't played the game. The other thing it translates well from the game is when the game loads up, if you walk to the back of the sub, there's just a piece of paper on the floor and you pick it up. And it's a former convict writing like, oh, they tell you that they'll give you your freedom if you do this mission, but it's a lie. Like I'm just going to die at the bottom of the ocean. That comes through in like a hidden audio recording here, which makes a smart choice. Yeah, doing smart adaptations, man. But yes, he is welded inside the submarine so that it'll withstand the pressures of the blood ocean. The porthole is sealed off. When they bring him up to the surface, I love that they have to keep squeegeeing the blood off of the window as it's coming down. It's a great visual there. But yes, he's taking pictures to see where he is going and to try to make discoveries. And he finds a skeleton on the ocean floor, like a big fish skeleton, right? It looks like a big fish skeleton. Big old fish skeleton. And when he finds that, that's when they're like, oh, shit, dude, come back up and get a samples of it. Yeah, they're like, just ram into this skeleton with this thing we're fixing to the front of your sub. Yeah, which they don't show what this looks like. I just imagine it being a giant skewer. Okay, I was imagining like a claw. Oh, I was just imagining like a kebab stick. Yeah. And his job is to just like ramming speed into this skeleton. And they're like, the ship will handle it. It's fine. Yeah, it's you're fine. You can do it. If you do that in the game, you die. Yes, you don't ram things in the game. That's what we discovered immediately. And dying in that game really sucks because it just fits you back out to the main menu. Yeah. This week's episode is sponsored by Rocket Money. Organizing finances is stressful. Forgetting a random subscription is especially terrible. It's like when you accidentally leave a coffee mug somewhere and you come back to a full on science experiment growing inside. It's the worst feeling. But that's where this week's sponsor comes in. 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That's rocketmoney.com slash deadmeat. Rocketmoney.com slash deadmeat. Speaking of the camera and other people also had this thought so I'm not alone here. We find out in the movie, it doesn't say this in the game, we find out in this movie that the camera is an x-ray camera. It's taking x-rays every time. It takes a picture. It's not just like... Well yeah because when he's up there and he's like, I went down, I did my job, let me out, I'm free. And they're ignoring him. They're like, it would take too long to get you out. We just got to send you back to do this and so he's mad, he's hitting all sorts of buttons. He finally hits the camera to get their attention and it takes a picture of them and they're like... But they're all skeletons. And they're all skeletons and they're like, dude what the fuck? You just blasted us with radiation. Jack's going to the hospital now. She even says later, you can apologize to my tumors. You just hit them with a mega cancer. But so if that's the case, then how do they know that the skeleton that they found is a skeleton? Well that's the thing, he goes back down and he's like, the skeleton's gone. Shouldn't they be like, oh man, it wasn't a skeleton. That was a live fish. We had a live one. It just seems like a massive oversight to me. And I don't know if we, the audience are supposed to just come up with that and realize that. But it's weird that the characters don't. That they're not like, oh wait a minute, dude. Yeah, you just saw Jack's bones. Maybe that skeleton was actually a live fish. I mean, the whole thing with Simon is that he just wants to live. That's what he keeps saying. He doesn't want to die on the bottom of the ocean like whoever left that voice message for him. He really just wants his freedom. He keeps claiming innocence with regards to whatever happened. Sounds like he keeps mentioning Eden. Is that like a group that he was with? Either a terrorist group or like a splinter group in this new world order, universal order of human beings because he talks about how Eden gave him a tattoo and said it was all over. And I feel like that was like the group he was with that maybe had a plan to destroy the last tree. And then he. I think he had a change of heart and he has a bracelet. Like as an adult, he has a bracelet with a seed that is inside of it that I'm assuming he also took from this tree as a way to make sure that this tree or plant life. It's a little bit water world. But doesn't he find the bracelet when he finds the voice message because he sees a thing on a piece of paper saying cross the wires. Oh, and then the bracelet pops out. So he crosses the wires and a panel opens and taped to the inside of the panel. Yeah, he finds a bracelet. Is the bracelet with the note. Yeah, and there's the voice message that he can listen to. And I guess it is the seed. I didn't realize the entire movie until after we got out that it had a seed. I couldn't tell what it was. I thought it was a mosquito or something. I just was my whole time. I just couldn't stop thinking dressing. Oh, like amber. It looks like a monocle to me almost, like this bracelet. I don't know. Yeah, it looks like a pressed flower. Okay, that's yeah. Yeah, yeah, something like that. But that is the way that he discovers that he's being lied to and that he is not the first one that they are sending down that they have done this before. He has a lot of issues with the sub. A lot of problems with it. At one point, he has to like crawl through that little crawl space. And I do love him. There's no light source. And he finds like a bottle of water but drinks it all right away. And then he like can't use it to activate the light on the little life vest. Yeah, because it's like water activated, just like in planes, you know, it's like if this is a water landing, the light will activate by itself. So for his source of light, he tries to tape the button of the camera down to just have it depressed all the time so that he keeps taking pictures. But like I love it's like medical tape. So it just keeps yeah. And because the physics of it, like if you could if you could wrap it around something, it would hold better. But he's just he's just trying to tape this thing, this giant button down on a flat surface. Yeah. And with it constantly trying to press out, it's like it's not going to work. And he winds up with a whole bunch of X shaped pieces of tape until he runs out of the role. But I do like that aspect. It is around here where I'm like the cuts could be made to the runtime when he's in the crawl space when he finds the black box. Yes. And like I know later it's like, oh, you need to go get the black box. So like that's establishing that it's there and everything. But that's just the part where I feel you could make the trims because again, this is I think two hours, seven minutes, maybe two hours, five minutes, a little long. Okay. So what what do we think this other voice is that he hears when he's down there? Because he's he's down there and he finds another sub. So he gets a reception like he hears he starts talking to a woman. Yeah, he can't access the data in its black box, but he starts talking to a woman through the radio who is apparently on this other sub that's been abandoned by the people who sent him down there. So it's like a previous mission. This is the SM eight. Yeah. And she's saying we found this is where I start getting very confused. It's the it's like this light. Yeah, like a godly light. And it basically she's like this. This is everything. This this is like infinite. It's food, water, it's everything. Like this is this is the answer. And I'm think, you know, it's it's red flags, right? Just seems too good to be true. Yeah. And it's it correlates with the game one of the last points you visit. Yes, the upper left corner of the map is called the anomaly. And when you take a picture of it, it's just like this blinding light. Yeah. And this is when it gets really cosmic. And when I start because I had a theory for what was going on. And I don't think my theory is right. What was your theory? My theory is that because this whole time he's also being stalked by this creature that keeps showing up on the camera. And it's fucking creepy. Someone who worked on the movie on Twitter posted like a full the full like CGI render of what this thing looks like. It's a big fish. It is. It's like a big eel. Oh, OK. So that also kind of just proves my theory, because I thought just from looking at this thing, because it's it looks like a fucking it looks like a deep sea fish, which I think are so scary. Like an anglerfish. Yes. Yeah, the scariest things. Yeah. Outer wilds. Yes. Like it's not anglerfish's fault. But I think they're really scary. And it's why it's one of two reasons I won't ride the Nemo ride at Disneyland. I don't like the part where it lights up and there's all the anglerfish. And I also the other reason is because it's just a fart tube. That ride is just you're stuck in there with everyone's farts. Yeah. So those two things, I'm good. But I thought it was going to be revealed that the voice he was hearing was this creature and that it was an anglerfish and that whatever this anglerfish devours, it can then you like voices and personalities and stuff because that's all the light is a lure lure. I saw I thought that it was using voices of other humans as a lure. Ah, but you don't think that's right. I don't know. It's not an anglerfish. It's a giant eel. Oh. Oh. But that was my theory. I like that theory. Yeah. Maybe you can change it. It just gets like I saw for maybe 15 minutes, I'm sitting there going, I got this. I just nudged me. I was like, I know. I think I know what's up. I was like, oh, okay. And then it gets it goes off the rails. And because like at one point, you know, he's talking to this person and they're like, oh, yeah, we were abandoned. And then he reaches up and the radio is disconnected. The radio is not even connected. Great moment. You know, good moment. Supportive of your theory. Yes. Because it's like, that's when I was feeling really confident. I was like, I got this movie all figured out. It's going to be a giant anglerfish. No worries. And then it's not where it gets so much more cosmic and larger scale than just giant anglerfish. Yeah. Because this is like when it almost feels like an ending and it's not because there's this whole hallucination and vision. Again, I am, I am relying on Wikipedia because I didn't take this many notes, but the sub is destroyed. Simon breaks the surface and sees a giant eye filling a stormy red sky. Like it's really cool looking. He's in this ocean of blood. I think by some reports, this movie broke the record on fake blood used because of like the ocean of blood needed. It's very like think eldritch horror scale of what this thing is because you only see like the end of it going back under the surface, right? You see like its tail. Yeah, you never get to see like a the reveal of the entire thing, but it feels like it's like, oh, like this is the end. It's not because then he wakes up and so what the fuck was that then? I don't know. This is why sometimes I can't fuck with cosmic horror because I need answers. It's too, it's too much for my puny brain to comprehend, especially when I'm distracted because at this point I'm like, fuck my theory. I wasn't right and I'm distracted by how annoyed I am that I was completely wrong, that I'm now struggling to catch up with like, wait, what's actually happening? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know if I, what's great though is that with this, we're going to be inundated with comments telling us what's up. That's the thing is everyone's just going to tell us, hopefully. Just be nice about it. We've also again been very sick. Yeah, we just have fever brain. I would have done a lot more homework for this one, but I'm dying. You know, I tried. I tried reading, but it just seems like there's a lot of confusion out there about what's- Oh, you also went and looked for- Yeah, I looked up some friends. Explain like I'm five. Yeah, like ELI five. Iron Lung, what's up? What's up? What's up with that? Anyways, when he comes back, he's talking back to the commander who's up there and she says that he's been missing for days. They shouldn't even have the oxygen for that because the oxygen level is just four lights and like right off the bat, one of them goes out and it's like oxygen down, which happens in the game too. We're like, what the fuck dude? I can't tell. I was wondering if in the game, is it on a timer or is it motivated by how you've taken this many pictures and then it clicks to low like the oxygen lowers like you've taken this based on your progress. Yeah. Okay. I don't think you can actually run out of oxygen in the game. Let me tell you, this game is so indie that feels like too sophisticated a system to work into this level of indie game. Yeah. Yeah. I think a little bit. Yeah. Anyways, he tells her that- I mean, she's like, listen, you're fucked. We can't expend the resources to come get you. Sorry. Also, I don't really even know your name. That sucks. But then when he mentions this other sub that he found. Yeah. He says I found the SMA and he shouldn't even know that that's down there, that it exists in the first place. She's like, oh, shit. That's got valuable information in it. We need that black box. I guess we'll send you there and then we'll meet you and you can give us that data. Here's how you can download that data on the computer, which is in the game, but you never use. You don't use it. No. Right? No, I don't think you ever use the computer. Because when I first started playing the game, I found that console and I basically did what he did, just typed random stuff. Yeah, I don't- I'm sure. Maybe there's hidden- That's what I'm wondering if there's hidden stuff in the game because I remember us talking to social media coordinator Michael on the Deadmeat team who is younger and more with things and plays a lot of games. Big Markiplier fan, he saw this movie twice in theaters. So kickback, Mark, if you want to give it to us, send it Michael's way. But he said the game is an hour long if you don't get distracted. So maybe there are other things to like find and do, I'm not sure. Yeah, maybe. Or maybe it's just if you're bad at coordinates. But yeah, in the movie, he logs onto this computer to remotely download the contents of the black box from this other ship that's down there. And that's the ship he was supposedly talking to the occupants of with his disconnected radio. Yeah. And apparently those audio logs confirm that the blood ocean is human blood. Yeah. So that's weird. That's how that happened. How that happened. And then- Do you think- Are we thinking it's supposed to be Earth? No, because it's a moon. Oh, it's a moon. Yeah, it's not a planet, it's a moon. Which is often the case- Like, Hoth, Hoth is a moon, Endor, also a moon. Avatar, Pandora is a moon. That's a moon, yeah. Because most planets are big and gaseous. Yeah. Can't be living on them. Yeah. It's the moons there. That's the key. Yeah. What are the moons in our system that are promising- Possibly. Europa? Europa, maybe? I think it's a couple of the chooper ones, yeah. And maybe a Saturn. Maybe one of the Saturns if you drill down deep enough into the ice, maybe. That sounds miserable. Yeah. We'll never have to worry about this. Yeah, we're not gonna make it that far. No. I think- I think- I mean, us specifically and probably collectively- Probably collectively. I don't think we'll make it. Not with our dumb monkey brains. I think we've proven that. Yeah. Asimov's all rolling in his grave. Yeah. Probably more likely to have the ocean of blood ending. Yeah. Yeah. We are all just confident. Gressel sick too. It's all of us. This sucks. Sorry, folks. Oh my god. Shikin's real weird as the sub starts filling with blood and then his body starts free. There's an unexpected body horror. Yeah. Okay. So I was reading an explanation that was talking about- Okay, so there's like the light, the anomaly. The anomaly, thank you. That's what- I love how your sickness makes you sound. The anomaly, thank you. The anomaly. I'm hot chum. I am not. I guess the anomaly, like that light is what's- what was responsible for the- was it the soft rapture? The quiet rapture? The quiet rapture. That's a badass name. It is cool. The quiet rapture and that light is basically like a hoarded light from the universe or something. Well, like compressed into a point or something? I guess, but that's what the creature down there is like hoarding it for itself. And that's why it's- it doesn't want Markiplier to get to the black box. Markiplier. Of the ship because it- that's gonna tell the rest of humanity this is how to bring light back to- Oh. So the ending is a good ending with the life jacket and the black box. Oh. Because we were debating that in the car. Yeah, like if it was a hopeful ending or not. Yeah, because like- Okay, this is- it's super cosmic and I'm like I don't even know what I'm talking about. Yeah, Chelsea's like my friend, my friend said that the light that he sees is- Yeah. It's a good thing. My friend's dad works at a Markiplier and he told me that the light is- the light from the universe or something. I know I had to have told the story before about how when I was a kid and I walked up and around the corner was like this empty storefront and I wanted to like- I wanted to buy it to have a storefront to do my cool drawings and stuff and there were like people working there and I asked them how much it was and they were like what and I said my dad was Danny DeVito. No, you didn't. I did. That is what I thought would give me the clout to like find out this information. I never heard this story before. You never heard that? What the fuck? That I said my dad was Danny. Why Danny DeVito? Because I was like eight and he was like an adult famous person who I knew probably because of Matilda and you know Matilda and fucking Taxi because I was a little nerd who watched Nick at Night. Yeah, it's just so funny just out of any celebrity. I just think it's such a fun choice. Yeah. Because like who would feel like yeah my dad is that weird like short little guy who played the penguin. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's just so many more dad like actors. Yeah. Like yeah, like yeah, Danny DeVito sired me. Yeah. Can you see the resemblance? Yeah, when when he is talking to the commander the last time and she is freaking out, she's like you you need to get the fucking black box. I love her. Just how insane she sounds, dude. Like it really relays the the urgency of the matter. She's like shut the fuck up. She's like just getting into these fevered pitches. It's amazing. Yeah, she gets chomped by that. Oh yeah. He like hears a he hears her die over the radio, right? But then he hears her because she like went down there to like meet him. Yeah, then he hears her voice afterwards in like as part of this creature entity thing. Oh, she's still talking to him. Oh, that's why I think her personality and she's like actually don't get the black box. You don't deserve it. It's that might be the other woman. That's that's the one thing is they sound similar. They sound a little similar. They're both very good. But they I could use a little bit more of a distinction between them. Even the fact that their actual names are like L and L.C. I'm like, damn it, that doesn't help. Yeah, but this does say the mysterious woman's voice tells Simon to destroy the data so others will not learn about the light. Oh, okay. So I think that is the other woman. Okay, the fish. So this is when his body goes nuts. Oh, yeah. And that okay, so I guess exposure to it, the blood or the light, oh, the light or like being in its vicinity, something makes him start to mutate. And so people theorize that the eel itself is also like a mutated person. Like a person, like a human. Yeah. Oh, because remember there's that quick shot of him in the driver's seat. And he looks like fucking Davey Jones and fires the Caribbean. Yeah, because he's got like crazy teeth. Is that when he's back by the computer and he sees himself? Yes. And but that's like a mirror of earlier on when he's first on the sub. And there's a figure at the in the back of the sub that moves past him. And so is that I don't know him because that's when he like gets I think the fire extinguisher or something is like creeping around the corner like attack him. It was a really creepy moment. But yeah, I wasn't sure if it was like a weird like interstellar thing or like a time travel thing where it's like him from the futures back there. And now it's him from the past in the driver's seat. But yeah, he's all yeah, you're right. Davey Jones. And yeah, he's starting to take on features that kind of resemble this, this creature that's outside the sea creature. So I mean, he loses an arm. His arm gets fucking ripped off. Do you know he's becoming he's becoming like a fucking parts the Caribbean. Like one of which which character is that Davey Jones? Yeah, it's a built bill bill like all his whole crew. Yeah. They get a big old tentacle beard. Yeah. But then there's Orlando Bloom's dad who get you know, yeah, yeah. Scarzgard. Yes, that whole crew. They all are like guys. They're like half fish and yeah, coral and everything. Yes. That's what's happening. Okay. They're not they're not ghosts. They're they're like ocean. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It's kind of like that, I guess. That's exactly what's happening. Just bloodier, I think. Yeah. I don't think there was a lot of blood in the Pirates movies. No. Whereas this record setting blood apparently. Yeah. He's like drowning it. Yeah. It's filling up the sub. He's like it's like it's bad. And then the okay, so the then the very ending, which I did not understand that this is what was happening until I read an explainer this later because there's just visually a lot going on. A lot happening, man. I didn't realize that that last shot of it's cool. You finally get to see outside of the submarine and the big eel and it's like on its teeth around the summer. Yeah. Yeah. And then it like blows up and kills the eel. I didn't realize because I didn't notice that it's it's the seed in the bracelet growing very rapidly into a tree. Oh, because it's been exposed again to the light, I think. Blood or the light. Okay. So it's like mutating. Yeah. Okay. And that's what kills the eel. It kills the eel and destroys the ship and kills Mark. Yeah. Okay. But then that's also what sends the life jacket with the black box up to the surface. Yeah. Because he ties the black box to the life vest. Yeah. So once the ship explodes, it's able to float up. And so it floats up to the surface and then I forget. Do we see it getting retrieved or no, we hear we hear we hear like an engine like a motor coming of someone to get it. Yeah. That's what I think is happening. Yeah. Again, we're going to try to get Mark on the show to talk all about it. I think we can make that happen. I have met him twice now and maybe he remembers my name this time. The first time was in 2018-17. I think I was going to say earlier than that. I think it was like right when Dead Meat started and I went with our friend, Brizzy Voices, Anna, and she knows him and like he had her do a cameo spot in one of his videos that he was filming at VidCon and I was with her at VidCon. So I just tagged along with her and then I'm in this video where he forgets my name twice. Brizzy and TJ. And I'm sorry, what was your name? James. James. James over here. Zosic Neutron. Brizzy, TJ. You're saying my James. My James. My James. It's fine. I was just a guy who he didn't know who showed up with his friend amidst a bunch of people. And like I've got my glasses on and like my practical folks hair. It's a throwback for sure. And so but then I met him at the premiere and we have a picture together there. So now third time's a charm. There you go. Because yeah, I would love to talk to him about just making this. Yeah. And I wonder how much he would have worked with the original game designer. A bunch. Apparently the game designer has a cameo in the movie. I don't know where there aren't a lot of places maybe in the flashback or something. I was going to say how many cameos can there be because there's not there's not many human voices or presences. I mean the flashback has a group of people. Yeah. David Zimanski is David Zimanski. He's done a bunch of indie games, dusk, gloomwood. I think dusk is his biggest one. Okay. A retro style first person shooter game. He's younger than us. Or younger than me. Yeah. That's Iron Lung question mark. Question mark. Yeah, please explain this movie to me. Yeah, I want to see a ton of comments. Yeah, we can all sleuth this out. I think we can all figure it out together. Yeah, because I know a bunch of people saw this multiple times and I feel like the more you see it. I do think seeing it a second time would be helpful in terms of getting a better grasp on just what is going on because I bet there's so much stuff that happens earlier where there's flashes of something or illusions to something that in retrospect are going, okay. Where in the moment you're like, no, that was weird and then you forget it even happened. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I have a feeling this movie, there's probably a lot of that. And the flashbacks happen a lot of very quickly. There are like flashes, although I did notice in one of them, it is young Simon surrounded by a very countable number of bodies. Okay. So I'm like, great. Great. We got that. There's the kill count will be, I guess that. Do you count the guy who gets blasted by this picture? Radiation. I think so. They mention he's in the hospital. They don't, I don't think she says that he died. Yeah, they don't say, yeah, he's just in the hospital. But they say it's Jack. So I think that's Jacksepticeye. Okay. I think he's the one who gets fucking blasted with that. Yeah. Yeah. Cancer camera. Don't want that to happen. Yeah, Professor Oak doesn't give you that. You can poke on snap. Oh. The big old cancer camera. Yeah. Go take picture of Lapras. And Lapras goes swimming in ocean blood and grown a second head. You know which one Lapras is? Yeah, it's blue. Yeah. She's right. I was thinking, I know that last podcast I pitched, we watched soul man for a Patreon podcast, the three of us. Oh my God, that's a terrible idea. How about this one? We watch Pokemon the movie. Yes. That for a Patreon commentary. We all cry together. How about we do that? I would do that. All right. We all weep at the ending. I was on the local news for that movie. No, you were. Oh, we need to find that footage. Do you have that footage? I don't have that footage and I really wish I did because it was, it was me when that was 90. 99. Seven, I think. No. I would say I'm gonna say 98. 98. I'm staking seven. Actually, I think it might have been 99. All right. So I'm 10 or 11. And it's me. And I'm like, I really like the mix of computer and traditional Japanese animation. And then it cuts to the most stoned teenager who's like, mew and mew to fought. It was cool. And that was the segment. Oh God, I wish you had that. I really wish I had it. See, that's the thing is this was before the internet saved everything. Yeah, I don't think that's anywhere. There's no masters about surviving anywhere. Fuck. In a basement in Southfield, Michigan, in the Channel 2 news studio. We might have the sway to go find that dude. That's got to exist. Well, year was it? So the Pokemon, the first movie. Is that what it was called? The first movie? Yeah. A presumptuous. They knew what they had. It was released in Japan in 1998 and North America in 1999. Okay. I'm sorry. I miss school. We left school early for that. Wow. Yeah, we should do that. I don't think Lapras gets cancer in it though. I just, yeah. I just think it's so funny just reminiscing on that movie and how every kid, like everyone who's old enough to have seen it and remember seeing it in theaters is like, man, we all fucking cried at that movie, right? And I just laughed so much thinking of all these bewildered parents taking their kids who are all sobbing at this fucking anime. Some of those parents were in numb. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. They're like, what's a Mewtwo? Yeah. It's so funny. It's so fucking funny. A non-zero amount of those parents were also moved to tears. Yeah. I'm going to ask, I forget if my mom or dad took me, but I'm going to, when they come visit, I'm going to ask if either of them even fucking remember that. Oh, we got dropped off for the Pokemon movie. My parents did not see that one. Huge thanks to Gressel for doing this late on a Sunday night. Thanks, buddy. Really appreciate you rolling with us. Is that the dog? Yes, the dog. Even the dog's coughing. All right, we got to get out of here. Thanks, everybody. Thank you. Thank you for bearing with our sickness. Jesus Christ. We will see you all in Florida. No, wait, that's, I already happened by the time we released this. Oh, okay. Just kidding. Hope we saw you in Florida. Hope we saw you in Florida. That's scared eyes. All right, until next time, I'm Chelsea. I'm James. And that's Gressel. And this has been the Dead Meat Podcast.