Tag Archives: Video game adaptation

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CAPSULE: IRON LUNG (2026)

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DIRECTED BY: Mark Fischbach

FEATURING: Mark Fischbach

PLOT: In the far future, when humanity is dying off, a convict is sent to the bottom of an ocean of blood on a distant moon in search of… something or other.

Still from iron lung (2026)

COMMENTS: If you’ve heard the rags-to-riches DIY success story of the fan video game adaptation Iron Lung, which played in 4,160 theaters worldwide in early 2026 based purely on a grassroots campaign where fans of YouTuber-turned-feature-film-director markiplier (Mark Fischback) begged cinemas to show it on the big screen, and are wondering whether the non-initiate will enjoy this, my answer is a firm “no.” While the film is a phenomenal success story on its own terms, it was made for a narrow niche audience, and unless you’ve played the video game or count yourself among markiplier’s 38 million YouTube channel subscribers, you ain’t it.

At least 90% of Iron Lung takes place inside a cramped submarine the size of a living room, crowded with metal apparatus and sensors. Convict pilot Simon (Fischback) is alone for almost the entire film, with occasional conversations over intercoms with bad connections to break his solitude. The craft is rickety, has no portals to see the outside world (which would just be a wall of opaque red anyway), has frequent blood leaks, and lunches a lot. You get to know every sharp corner and blinking light in the sub in the film’s 2-hour runtime; you almost feel like you could pilot this tub yourself. The detailed set conveys the feeling of a metal prison, and the sound design is superlative: drips, scrapes, static, echoes, thumps, all sorts of dreadful alarming noises to remind you that you are in a tin can surrounded by certain death. Based on the editing in the climax, I think that Fischback could direct a thrilling action scene—assuming you knew who, what, and where the antagonist was and what the hell was going on.

But as impressive as the film’s technicals may be, the script is simultaneously boring and confusing. I mentioned that the film was 2 hours long, and it makes sure you feel every minute. Reports suggest the game itself can be finished in under and hour—an hour and a half if you dwaddle—so there is a lot of padding added here to convey the combination of tedium and dread the protagonist would experience. Watching the movie, you get the sense that the game is nothing but a long test of your ability to press buttons, flip switches, and turn knobs, because this mostly what Fischback does on screen. There is a part where he accidentally irradiates some of his handlers, which has no payoff. There is a tormented personal backstory delivered in monologue, meant to humanize the an anonymous explorer. But mainly, it’s Fischback flipping switches, turning knobs, and bemoaning his fate.

The mystery of this abandoned moon is where the film’s claim to weirdness comes from. The premise itself is absurd: supposedly all the stars and planets have suddenly disappeared except for a single moon with an ocean of blood. Although the technology here comes from hard science fiction, the scenario is entirely mystical. The ocean floor contains mysterious artifacts (which I won’t spoil) and something that might be an entity—or, it could all be an oxygen-deprivation hallucination. There is some body horror, some monstrous visions, a blood-soaked cosmic climax, and no clear resolution. The lack of explanations would not be a problem if we cared about the protagonist in more than a theoretical sense, but it’s hard to become engaged with the convict’s plight. We root for humanity to survive more out of a sense of general obligation to the species than because the movie has caused us to care about this particular band of plucky survivors. So, in short: play the game first. If you want more, see the movie. Don’t reverse the process.

Iron Lung is currently available for rental or purchase solely on YouTube.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“It’s slow, weird, and draining in a way that feels oddly beautiful.”–Roberto Tyler Ortiz, Geek Vibes Nation (contemporaneous)

(This movie was nominated for review by “Anonymous,” who suggested it “[h]as enough questions about what f***ed up stuff we’re seeing is real or not, and ends with one of the goriest climaxes in all of film with a battle with a sentient ocean of radioactive human blood..” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

Capsules

CAPSULE: EXIT 8 (2025)

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Exit 8 is available to purchase on-demand.

DIRECTED BY: Genki Kawamura

FEATURING: Kazunari Ninomiya, Yamato Kôchi, Naru Asanuma

PLOT: An expectant father finds himself trapped in a seemingly never-ending subway corridor.

Still from Exit 8 (2025)

COMMENTS: In recent years, an increasing number of movies and TV shows have attempted to adapt video games. At the same time, there is a trend inside the indie gaming landscape of making psychological horror adventures set in liminal spaces, transitional places with an unsettling vibe. The 2023 game “Exit 8” by Kotake Create is an iconic short game of this subgenre. 2 years later, collaborating with the original work’s creator, Genki Kawamura translates this piece for the cinematic medium.

The backstory becomes apparent from the beginning, with the setup explaining our main character and his anxieties as an expectant father. The protagonist is then trapped inside a unique one-way subway labyrinth where he needs to spot “anomalies” and then immediately change his direction if he wants to escape. This begins a surreal odyssey not dissimilar from space-bending cinematic tales in the vein of ’s The Incident (2014) or ’s Vivarium (2019).

We can also trace aesthetic influences from video games, and not only from the eponymous game this work is based upon. For starters, there is a segment early on where POV shots recall the first-person perspective of the original game and many other survival horror titles. The “Silent Hill” game franchise is a clear influence. As in that series, the supernatural anomalies our hero encounters are a distorted reflection of his scarred psyche, bringing narrative depth and character development to the table. The original “Exit 8” game had nothing like that.

Another change from the original is the introduction of secondary characters. Our hero encounters other trapped souls inside this endless corridor, each with his or her own identity and backstory. While one person’s journey was enough to sustain the short experience of the original game, more characters are necessary for a meaningful feature-length experience.

From a technical perspective, this work is astonishing. The environments are the perfect recreation of the original game’s virtual spaces, with uncannily vibrant reflected light. There are also great body horror effects that will entertain fans of the weird and grotesque. Maurice Ravel’s “Bolero” underlines our protagonist’s inner conflicts and his transformative journey.

In the end, it is better to approach this movie as a stand-alone piece rather than an adaptation. It offers something completely different from the work that inspired it, using its predecessor’s simple formula as a metaphor for insecurities, anxieties, and existential angst, creating a unique narrative in the process.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“The film mines tension from the absurdity of the Lost Man’s confinement, and in ways that recall Vincenzo Natali’s Cube, perhaps the granddaddy of escape-room horror. To that end, Kawamura at times pushes the original game’s subtle eeriness into full-on scares, introducing spooky apparitions and a horde of mutated creatures that would feel at home in Silent Hill.”–Mark Hanson, Slant (contemporaneous) 

Capsules

CAPSULE: RETURN TO SILENT HILL (2026)

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Jeremy Irvine, Hannah Emily Anderson

PLOT: A painter’s drunken dreams and a mysterious note lead him to the ghost town of Silent Hill, where he searches for his lost ex-lover amidst the eternally smoldering ruins.

Still from return to silent hill (2026)

COMMENTS: Aficionados will tell you that “Silent Hill 2” is one of the greatest video game stories ever told. I trust them, but this adaptation by Christophe Gans, returning to the Silent Hill series after a highly disappointing middle installment from another director, does nothing to support their claim. (Evidence of it faithfully recapturing the look of the game, on the other hand, is much stronger.) What we get here is a gilded but mediocre psychological horror that never explains why it needs to be set in the rapidly deteriorating “Silent Hill” universe—except for the fact that it’s a spooky locale.

And indeed, the film is at its best when it’s merely prowling about the town, encountering swarms of beetle-like insects, headless zombies squirting acid from a torso orifice, and spider-like corpses. It’s fun just sightseeing: the ashy gray streets and the eerie hallways of the town’s dilapidated tenements have a bleak beauty. But even Silent Hill’s essential hauntedness is starting to have diminishing returns. The series’ signature monster, Pyramid Head, is scary—terrifying, in fact—the first time you see him. Three movies in, he doesn’t have the same impact. Unlike in a game, this lumbering behemoth is never a threat to catch a protagonist.

Irvine and Anderson are competent leads whose main virtue is that they’re easy on the eyes. The supporting cast does not stand out, and it seems that most of their characters have been cut for time (Eddie serves no purpose in this plot, and could have been left out entirely). Akira Yamaoka’s evocative music again features. The star, such as it is, is the production design and visual effects.

The plot is the biggest issue. Yes, the movie will get weird, but only in that tired “the borders between reality and hallucination start to blur” approach that now seems to animate 5-10% of low and mid-budget horrors. The info drops explaining James and Mary’s generic love affair hardly create a strong emotional rooting interest, and the backstory of the mysterious cult isn’t developed enough to create a meaningful plot engine. In a nod to the video game’s multiple possible resolutions, the movie has conflicting, contradictory endings. The technique doesn’t work at all in the context of a movie adaptation, particularly for people who’ve never played the game. Don’t Return to Silent Hill in theaters. If you do, don’t say you weren’t warned.

Walkout note: the only other people in my theater, a couple, walked out with fifteen minutes left to go.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…between unnecessary lore changes and a lack of thematic heft in some of its storytelling, the filmmaker’s return to the franchise is a weird mix of exciting recreations, gorgeous visuals and disappointing execution.”–Grant Hermanns, Screen Rant (contemporaneous)

Alfred Eaker's Fringe Cinema

ALFRED EAKER VS. THE SUMMER BLOCKBUSTERS: POKEMON DETECTIVE PIKACHU (2019)

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What the hell can I say?  When I saw that 366 Weird Movies’ readers had topped themselves in sadism with this year’s summer blockbuster picks (a video game, a Disney, AND a comic book movie) you can understand why I, quite frankly, forgot the lot of you. The only possible reprieve is Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,  which is why I’m here belatedly for the video game entry and did not bail entirely (or get my revenge by making Greg go in my place).

You could have at least sent me to the Star Wars thingamajig so I could piss off both the lovers and haters (they’re still bellowing over The Last Jedi, which, let’s be honest, is the first Star Wars with any sense of surprise since 1980).  And you hit me first with a goddamned video game movie adaptation, which is about as low a bar as it gets.

First, let me tell you what annoys me about gamers. Now, mind you, I did play Pacman and Centipede once, in a Godfather’s Pizza, but I least I got to enjoy smoky treats while I got slaughtered (not that many of you would remember, but yeah, we used to smoke in public—restaurants, college, malls, airplanes—before all you annoying nonsmokers overbred and took over the entire world). But that was not when I decided that suicide would be preferable to the whole video game thing.  No, that realization came after I did a few years managing a video store (Do you remember these? that’s a Statler Brothers reference, by the way) when I had to deal with gamers. They would call the store and, to a man, they would rattle off game titles, most of which had some kind of X followed by a number. Those excitable boys would say the names at such a fast clip I always had to ask them to repeat that a tad slower. I remember one gamer coming in wearing a shirt which said something to the effect that Nintendo (or whatever) was better than girls. How would he even know?  And then their comedy is the cherry on the cake; you know, when they get defensive and claim they are  being productive and that video games are art and they are complex and… zzzzz.

Now you gaming twits have taken a swipe at me by sending me to Pikachu. Oh, how cute. Now it’s my turn.

Still from Pokemon Detective PikachuOK, first, is this yellow a guy a rabbit? He sort of looks like a rabbit, which might explain why this movie rips off Roger  Rabbit (and several other films). Except that director Rob Letterman is no Robert Zemeckis, Pikachu is no Roger, and Justice Smith is no (actually all the humans here are pretty lifeless, like that one Star Wars prequel where Yoda was the most animated person). Also, Roger Rabbit was actually a funny screwup. Pikachu does cutesy one-liners that are predictable and ingratiating.

I suppose we should get to the plot. Tim (Justice Smith) does not like Pokemons because his detective dad was supposedly killed by one (sound familiar?) Tim lives on the outskirts of Ryme City (visually, a cross between Blade Runner and Toon Town), where Pokemons and humans cohabitate, and now has to team with Detective Pikachu (Ryan Reynolds) who was his dad’s partner. Insert Phillip Marlowe references. Repeat often for filler.

Of course, there’s a plethora of universe building. Am I the only one who does not give a hoot about all the extended universes of late (Marvel, DC, etc)? Someone in the popcorn line (you tightwads have never even sent me a damned AMC gift card for enduring these summers) referred to it as the “Pokeverse.” OK, I’m putting my foot down. I will not even include the next Pokefeature as a summer blockbuster poll option (and no doubt there will be many more to come as it has already made a zillion dollars. As the saying goes, you’ll never go broke underestimating the intelligence or taste of the American public.)

Anyway, the CGI excess is not a surprise. It becomes tediously hedonistic about the midway mark. What is surprising is that the plot gets complicated and sloppy. There’s the rub, so to speak. Pokemon wants to be taken seriously, but it wants to be entertaining, too, and tries this mostly through Pikachu’s sidekick, Psyduck (I’m not making this up), who has to be kept calm or he will implode (think of the tradition of bringing in a cantankerous duck when the protagonist toon gets too goody-goody dull.)

The Sherlock Holmes bit apes countless cop buddy movies, but suffers most from an outcome that is anything but a mystery. Some of the humor is a tad risqué—that’s clearly the reason for casting Deadpool‘s Reynolds—but even that can’t save Pokemon, once it ceases to be a movie in favor of product building.

For Pokefans only.

Next week: Aladdin.

I hate all of you.

Reader Recommendations

READER RECOMMENDATION: SUPER MARIO BROS. (1993)

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Reader Review by John Klingle

DIRECTED BY: Annabel Jankel, Rocky Morton

FEATURING: , ,

PLOT: Two plumbers from Brooklyn are unwittingly warped into an alternate dimension populated by human-dinosaur hybrids, and  discover a plot to invade the Earth that only they can prevent.

Still from Super Mario Bros. (1993)

INDELIBLE IMAGE: The fugitive Princess Daisy discovers her long lost father, the King: a sentient mass of yellow fungus drooping from the ceiling above his old throne.

WHY IT SHOULD MAKE THE LIST: Combining slapstick humor and trite wordplay with a penchant for grotesque visuals and fascist imagery completely disconnected from its beloved source material, Super Mario Bros. seems determined to shock and disturb its supposed target audience.

COMMENTS: The original sin of video game-to-movie adaptations, Super Mario Bros. is widely regarded as a transgression against its beloved source material and a discordant mish-mash of half-baked, poorly-executed ideas. But while it’s true that the film is unforgivable as an adaptation, looking at Super Mario Bros. for its own merits reveals a unique Gothic fantasy filled with psychedelic imagery.

Rather than making any real effort to replicate the experience of playing Shigeru Miyamoto’s foundational game series, Super Mario Bros. instead takes the bare skeleton of the Mario games and builds its own dystopian adventure around it. The elements the film plucks from the games are well-chosen ingredients for a cult film, too: it borrows the game series’ central fish-out-of-water fantasy world conceit (The Wizard of Oz), its recurring theme of bodily transformation (Videodrome), and its visual obsession with ducts and pipes (Brazil ) and, of course, mushrooms (“,” take your pick). The filmmakers (“Max Headroom” creators Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton) unfortunately don’t manage to create any sense of cohesion among these various elements, but this doesn’t prevent each of them from being deeply memorable on its own.

Mixed in liberally with these ingredients from the games are the film’s own inventions, whose connection to the Mario universe is much more tenuous. The most notable of these is the corporate fascist imagery. The movie adaptation re-imagines the games’ draconic King Koopa as a Donald Trump-like plutocrat who runs a mechanized police state under the guise of democracy. This conceit is perhaps the film’s most powerful source of tonal dissonance: the bumbling, Stooges-like antics of Koopa’s minions do little to detract from the horror of seeing a street busker forcibly converted into a devolved monster as punishment for political dissidence.

Much like Labyrinth, Super Mario Bros.’ commitment, however lackluster, to being a commercial children’s film prevents it from pursuing its darker themes to any satisfying conclusion. In some ways, this makes it all the more disturbing; the film consistently dips its toes into dystopian or psychosexual territory only to retreat back into John Leguizamo and Bob Hoskins’ yukking and shucking, depriving the viewer of any catharsis. Super Mario Bros. is a movie that doesn’t leave you, its most bizarre moments sticking like burrs to the minds of the children who saw it.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Bizarre, replete in often stunning special effects and verrrry strange from the outset, Super Mario Bros is curiously entertaining, even though it often makes little sense.” – Roger Hurlburt, South Florida Sun Sentinel (contemporaneous)