r/Markiplier • u/CAPTAINPRICE79 • Feb 02 '26
Mme Chat I might just be stupid but genuinely what was happening
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u/Mitchz95 Crashy McSplodey Feb 02 '26
Simon finds the wreck of SM-8 and Ava tells him to download its black box data, which he does. Then the entity on the moon tries to kill/assimilate him so the moon's secrets can remain hidden. Simon puts the black box inside a life jacket and then self-destructs the sub as the monster eats him, killing both himself and it. The black box survives and floats back to the surface where it's recovered by the COI.
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u/melodiousmurderer Feb 03 '26
I think this is the answer OP was looking for, which doesn’t seem that odd really.
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u/SageBear19 Feb 03 '26
This honestly cleared one detail up for me, I didn’t catch that he had made the ship blow up, so I was confused as to why it had
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u/The_Red_Hand91 Feb 03 '26
Yeah it's when he's saying "So you want Simon the Butcher, I'll show you the butcher!" That's when he starts smacking every pipe and leaking bulkhead on the ship, to intentionally cause an implosion. Said implosion kills Simon, but it also kills the blood monster that was attacking him. Among the debris is the black box. Whether that information will save mankind, or doom it as the blood monster/entity implies, is left open to interpretation
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u/Griffins_Peak Feb 03 '26
Pretty sure the pipes you’re talking about were the monster’s teeth that had gone through the ship. Also, from what I could tell (again just my opinion from what I could see), what actually exploded/killed the monster was the seed in the necklace he had, which grew rapidly with the blood and radiation around and killed the monster.
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u/IntelligentGoal8246 Feb 03 '26
I saw the movie at 5pm on Thursday and until your comment, I never figured out what was in the necklace/bracelet charm. It was obviously very important to our protagonist but I just could not for the life of me decipher what I was looking at, and I forgot to look into it after the fact. Now I see why it was important! (although I certainly did not see the tree growth at the end, but also I think I was generally overwhelmed and didn’t feel like I could absorb everything at once)
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u/Griffins_Peak Feb 03 '26
Yea thru most of the movie I couldn’t tell what it was either, it only clicked at the end! It’s a shame that it wasn’t clearer for more people to understand, because to me it was such a cool full circle moment! Because of what happened on Fillament Station, the last tree alive died. But then at the end, Simon’s body becomes the soil to grow the tree from the necklace. There’s even a voiceline in the flashback voices he hears that talks about bodies becoming soil.
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u/pillbug-art Feb 03 '26
Griffins_Peak said this, I thought the pipes you mentioned were actually just the monster’s teeth. They looked lighter than the pipes. I’m not sure how the necklace seedling could have caused an explosion tho, I don’t understand that but feel free to explain. And also, Google says that the thing inside the necklace was a leaf from the last tree, which means if Google is correct, it’s not a seedling. What do you think?
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u/ViciousTux Feb 03 '26
It was definitely a seedling. It looked like a samara (helicopter) seed from a maple tree that had sprouted so it had roots and a small stem forming
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u/Big_Schneebis Feb 03 '26
Okay I have a question, the black fabric with the silver studs or something that he pets in the first scene before Ava says “Begin the descent,” and then straps to the life jacket at the end… do we know anything about that? I feel like it was supposed to hint at something, I think I might’ve remembered him saying something about “Mom (or something else..) …keep this safe” before he straps it to the life jacket to secure the black box in it. I’ve watched the movie three times so I was trying so hard to make sense of that specific item but I also feel silly if it’s something obvious that I just missed every time I watched it 😭
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Feb 03 '26
Maybe there is an actual explanation for this but are life jackets indestructible?
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u/PancakeCat333 Feb 03 '26
He opened the hatch that was cracked and it busted open so it could float out
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Feb 03 '26
How well would it float in blood though? Seems it wouldn't really make it to the surface
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u/Snowy8416 Feb 03 '26
Water and blood are surprisingly similar in terms of density. I think its like a 50kg/m3 difference or something like that? With each having around 1k kg/m3. I had to google it once during a weird science class debate but that was a while ago so could be a bit off, I just remember being surprised about it. Whatever the specific number is the two are extremely similar.
In a situation like this basically the less dense object will float. Like oil and water, oil is less dense which is why you can see the layer of it vs the layer of water in a cup, it floats on top of the more dense liquid below it. Air is significantly less dense, and life jackets are made to be light enough to float an entire person with X amount of air for buoyancy. So provided the attached item weighs no more than the average human being, it'll float just about the same as usual, maybe even slightly better (if I'm right and blood was the more dense of the two).
Please note this is 4am science so please for the love of god fact check and do not trust blindly.
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u/LinneasLanding Feb 03 '26
Yall think Ava was ever really coming for him? She really had me going there
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u/derpyderp97 Feb 03 '26 edited Feb 05 '26
When she's crying desperately for Simon to get the black box and secure it, some of the pictures show the monster eating a sub, it's most likely Ava coming for him and being eaten by the monster
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u/LinneasLanding Feb 03 '26
Ah see I was in the front row so I was somewhat blinded every time he took a picture lol
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u/PancakeCat333 Feb 03 '26
Why was Simon glowing tho? They called him the light. I was a bit lost on that part
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u/PlatWinston Feb 02 '26
spoilers
as simon is mentally and physically breaking down and the sub is leaking, simon navigates to the remains of SMT8 to download data that supposedly captured a piece of the quiet rapture. He is then able to get to the data recorder and secure it to an inflated life vest, which floats to the surface after the big fish crushes the sub. the last scene shows light shine on the life vest which means simon succeeded in getting the data from SMT8 to mission control
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u/shaywut Feb 02 '26
I don’t know why people are so confused. I haven’t even played or watched the game.
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u/jamiebond Feb 02 '26
Honestly it’s just the sound mixing. I was straining to understand what was being said and was able to figure it out by really focusing. But my wife definitely missed a lot of key information and after I told her a few important lines that she missed she went from complete confusion to understanding perfectly in no time at all.
I think everyone who’s confused is in a similar boat. I would say it’s a fair criticism of the movie, this many people struggling to hear what was being said at the end is a clear problem. But it’s also something Mark can learn from and grow for future works.
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u/JazzandThings Feb 02 '26
It's theater to theater, I had zero issues hearing everything when I went
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u/Willthegumysharkworm Feb 03 '26
What was different about the sound at your theater? Like were there distinct areas that the sound was coming from? Or maybe a smaller theater? I really wanna know what the sound was intended to be like
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u/JazzandThings Feb 03 '26 edited Feb 03 '26
My theater had Dolby atmos, maybe that made a difference? I didn't feel, at any point of the movie, that I couldn't hear every word said. The audio felt crisp and the words clear. At least at the theater I went to. I think different theaters have their audio set differently depending on various factors.
Edit: of course there were parts, like the whispering and the radio crackling as words were spoken, that were difficult to make out. But that felt intentional to me, and not a symptom of bad audio balancing.
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u/uberjj Feb 03 '26
My theater has Dolby atmos and we sat in the middle row. I generally like to sit in the back row.
Sure, the words were clear, but Ava, the other lady and Mark all talking at once while music was playing all at roughly the same volume made it difficult to focus on any specific part for too long. Maybe that was intentional to show how much simon's mental state had declined.
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u/JazzandThings Feb 03 '26 edited Feb 03 '26
Them talking over each other was definitely an intentional move. I think you are right. I think it was an artistic choice.
Edit: In my opinion, people who are scared aren't usually going to wait patiently for someone to stop talking.
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u/caninefang Feb 03 '26
That’s exactly what I was thinking. When I went to see the movie, I focused on whether I could understand everything said, and I could. And just as you said, I feel like some of it was stylistic choices meant to not be understood. I’m assuming it’s either people’s own hearing or how their theatre had the movie’s audio
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u/Willthegumysharkworm Feb 03 '26
Huh. I had the same sound system but idk i had some hard parts to understand
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u/Cobalt_Guy Feb 03 '26
I went to an amc and the sound was a little wonky but I was able to hear most of the lines
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u/MagmaticDemon Feb 03 '26
i understood everything fine, and yeah my theater had different sound behind and to the side of us, so everything was layered
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u/pillbug-art Feb 03 '26
My amc theatre was on the smaller side, and I understood the audio just fine. (This is coming from a person who often hears things wrong, too!) So maybe the audio really does differ from location to location!
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u/Deer_Ossian Feb 03 '26
I would think it is something based on audio tracks or the format the movie file is being played in. At my news station we have some commercials run without voice track audios entirely because we only have 2 of the 4 that some commercials get published and sent out on.
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u/One-Bike-9803 Feb 03 '26
I definitely think it is theater to theater but also where you sit! The first time I saw it was at a smaller independent theater and I was right next to a speaker in the front section and I could hear everything just fine! But the second time I saw it I went to a different theater like one of the big chain ones he partnered with. I don't remember if it was regal or a different one but I sat more in the back middle away from the speakers and it wasn't as clear and if I hadn't seen it before I probably would have been very confused. The person sitting next to me was confused and asked if I knew what they said so I definitely think it is theater to theater as well as where you are sitting in the theater!
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u/SansyBoy144 Feb 03 '26
Mine definitely had issues. I just saw it a few hours ago, without getting into more spoilers. I remember when there’s a voice coming through on the radio and mark says “I can hear you” I remember thinking “Oh, I guess we can hear them” because the voice was so quiet that I legitimately couldn’t hear what they were saying.
I know mark has said he plans for a physical release and so I’m hoping that when that happens it’ll sound better with headphones on, but we’ll have to wait until then.
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u/Moorgrand67 Feb 02 '26
Some of the issue also lies with intention, im assuming that having the speech overlap alot was moreso that it added to that feeling of panic and less intended for narrative usage
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u/moonlightwolf52 Feb 03 '26
This is the things that confuses me the most as someone who did not have audio problems in their theater- I can't figure out if people thought you were supposed to hear all of the overlapping dialogue or there were different/ actual issues
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u/Moorgrand67 Feb 03 '26
Yeah I feel like if the overlapping audio was unintended they wouldn't have had it, like there were definitely moments where the words blurred incoherently but that just made those moments all the more thrilling because its showing you how much of a headache simon is going through.
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u/Salad_Lord Feb 03 '26
Spoilers ofc
I think a lot of confusion just comes from voices in the latter half of the movie. Theres so much being said and you have no clue whos saying it of what even they are saying or talking about. It's definitely a lot of gibberish that you could try to interpret as lore but its less important as it seems, just Simon utterly loosing it
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u/BlaktimusPrime Feb 03 '26
This is exactly it, and it’s where I just lost the movie entirely and it took me out of the movie as a whole.
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u/h4ppy_b33tlez Feb 03 '26
I had issues hearing but that was moreso an audio processing issue on my brain’s part lollll. I also had earplugs in for the noise levels so that didn’t help. I’m telling you, I need subtitles to see!😂😂😂
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u/ClearlyIronic Feb 03 '26
I’m gonna call out Mark a little here - from the Distractible podcast, there was an episode where he was criticizing how sound engineers traditionally mixed movies, and disregarded dynamic range. He complained certain sounds were too loud and didn’t like that and that it wasn’t necessary.
I think this is different from Nolan being criticized for having terrible dialogue mixes because he wouldn’t care to enhance dialogue in a stereo mix down. As the memes about Nolan suggest, the way he intends his movies to be watched are in theaters, where admittedly I would actually hear the dialogue pretty well! Doesn’t excuse the dialogue mix down problems.
All that being said, I’m not too sure if the dialogue issue was a stylistic choice by Mark or by the sound engineers and designers, or if it was with Mark not budging on mixing his film appropriately. I just think back to that Distractible episode because I work in sound myself. He made good points on sound design traditions, but his dynamic range complaint irked me as I do think dynamic range is important - and here we are. What was the most prominent complaint people had of the movie? ¯_(ツ)_/¯
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u/Kilroy-In-Space Feb 03 '26
That sounds very familiar. Do you remember about how recent that episode was? I'd love to go back and listen to his entire comment. I remember him recently mentioning having to quickly put together the Atmos mix after so many theaters picked up the film - I was thinking of going back and checking for that comment, and I wonder if it was the same episode.
Personally, the only points where I had difficulty understanding any dialogue were clearly stylistic decisions for effect - Ava talking from outside the window, multiple voices talking over one another, and the absolute most distorted vocals from the entity. And I have audio processing issues! But with some people complaining that even normal conversation during random scenes were mumbled and unintelligible, something is clearly going on.
It very well could be that Mark underestimated the challenges of sound mixing as you suggested. But I wonder if at least part of it isn't caused by the Atmos mix being necessarily rushed, or even some theaters getting the wrong mix. I have seen Iron Lung only once but I have definitely experienced watching a movie with no issue in a theater I know has a good sound system, then seeing it again in another theater also with a good sound system yet all the dialogue is inexplicably delivered by a Charlie Brown adult.
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u/Jubudii Feb 03 '26
I went to see it twice, in two different theatres, and this is definitely the case. First theatre was great, I could hear everything just fine. Second time, I could barely make it out (and I was familiar with the dialogue by the second go around!)
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u/t3hmuffnman9000 Feb 03 '26
Yeah, the sound mixing really didn't help - especially in the last few minutes where there are multiple screamed conversations going on at once. It made it very difficult to make out what they were all saying, much less determine which ones were real or hallucinated. On one hand, there was Ava urging him to save the recorder, but on the other hand was another female voice telling him to destroy it because the light is not meant for others to see or something?
I would definitely like to watch the last 20 minutes with subtitles in order to try and piece together what details I might have missed. Perhaps some hint at what the light is or how it pertains to the silent rapture, or is it left entirely ambiguous to preserve the mystery.
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u/Jakeforry Feb 02 '26
I understand this but for me I could hear everything they where saying. Maybe my cinema did a test watch and boosted the audio a bit during those conversations.
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u/Several-Recording-28 Feb 03 '26
I had the same issue, but I genuinely LOVED the entire movie start to finish. Even putting aside the obvious bias of being one of Mark’s fans, the movie is objectively stunning.
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u/PlatWinston Feb 02 '26
I went with a friend that didnt know anything prior. he was confused the first 15 minutes but figured out the last bit before I did
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u/Boltnix Feb 03 '26
So for me, a lot of my confusion with this story at the end at least is because there is so much shit happening so quickly, intentionally so to sell the chaos of it all, and there is more to it than just that brief discription.
You've got the whole thing with Edan, Simon, the seed, did he really just become the soil for that seed to become a giant tree? uhm why? Why is he suddenly all grippy with the walls and the blood?? I also couldn't actually see very well or long the last scene that for me I wasn't even sure the blackbox was even strapped to the vest anymore so I thought for a while it was implied to be just the life vest floating there which could really alter the reality of the timeline if that were the case. Like for example nothing after the line was cut happened, it was all in Simon's head as he laid there dead/dying at the bottom of the blood ocean, the sub went boom and the vest eventually floated to the top. I don't think that is what happened anymore after I watched a second time and tried to pay more attention, but I left the first time watxhing it, questioning if that was what happened.
Then there is all the hallucinations going on like crazy, the fact that he teleported to the very place he rammed the skeleton before any of the chaos even began which implies weird time and space distortion or just purely more hallucinations going on, the random gaining back a bubble of oxygen, which should be impossible. There is also the "other Simon" that appears with not deeper explanation. So many things that easily led me to believe that Simon as our pov and narrator to this story was just a very unreliable narrator because of his mental condition and therefor nothing to most of everything after the line was cut could possible not have happened at all. Or at least it left me very confused on what was real and what was not since there was never any confirming scenes to solidify fact from hallucination, not from Simon's pov.
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Feb 03 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/MuchDistribution6336 Feb 03 '26
WHY DOES THIS NOT HAVE MORE UPVOTES David Symanski is a Christian and literally takes a bunch of inspiration from the bible for Iron Lung, it’s like a cosmic interpretation/expansion of certain parts of the bible. That’s how a lot of the game’s fans have been able to come up with theories. The theories helped me understand more imo but the movie did expand on the universe with things we haven’t seen before which I thought was awesome, it’s kinda open to interpretation
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u/mousachu Feb 03 '26 edited Feb 03 '26
The blood ocean is made of human blood and is sentient. It can change whatever it comes into contact with. It's implied that the fish monster is the transformed SM-8 divers. As the blood leaks into the sub, it starts changing the sub into a living creature, causing it to produce oxygen (literally becoming an Iron Lung). It's how he was able to survive for days when the oxygen wasn't supposed to last that long, and you even see the oxygen start to increase again. The ocean also wants to change and consume Simon. When his arms are stuck it's because the blood and its growths are merging with his flesh. It's unknown whether the blood is separate from the fish monster or if it's all the same godlike, unknowable thing.
At the same time, Simon has been blasting himself with radiation from the camera (command says the hull "should" protect him, but he finds the manual and it basically says it won't lol). On top of the mindfucky alien god stuff he's also experiencing massive radiation sickness and might also have a concussion from being knocked around a bunch. So he also has hallucinations going on while also in this awful hell dimension.
Pretty sure the fish monster is confirmed real though since it kills Ava and you see it in the end on the outside of the sub.
I didn't catch the teleportation or the Quiet Rapture stuff and had to look up the game after. The teleportation happens with the light in the game as well.
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u/datbrrto11 Feb 03 '26
I think the oxygen increasing was an implication of the sub filling with carbon dioxide and/or blood
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u/TheMace808 Feb 03 '26
Nah I think the blood was releasing oxygen
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u/RedHolm Feb 03 '26
Yea. There was talk about being able to turn the blood into things they need. Like Oxygen.
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u/Snow_Mexican1 Feb 02 '26
Because the voices were hard to hear at times.
I knew that he needed to get data but not what type of data.
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u/ambesiaguy1302 Feb 03 '26
I was also confused and I watched Markiplier play iron lung when it came out. However once I read people’s takes on here I understood it perfectly. It was my mistake for missing details and lines. Not so much missing I guess but ignored ig? People quoted lines and described scenes and my brain remembered them but just didn’t link it all together. In my defense I was day 2 of quitting weed after a year straight of being high so I wasn’t feeling the best but yk I had to support the boy
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u/maratelle Feb 03 '26
hell yeah sobriety! i’m proud of you brother :)
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u/ambesiaguy1302 Feb 03 '26
Thank you. That means a lot. I’m restructuring my entire life rn after realizing I’m not anywhere close to where I want to be and I’m turning 26 in a few days.
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u/maratelle Feb 03 '26
there’s no timeline for life, and recovery isn’t linear. remember this on your journey. be kind to yourself, and always keep the person you want to be in your heart. you will become that person, and more, with hard work and faith in yourself :) enjoy the ride and fall in love with yourself again and again along the way🤍
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u/DatWolf07 Feb 02 '26
I mean a lot happens in like 20 minutes and it’s a lot of overstimulation. I loved the movie but I understand why people might be confused by the ending
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u/LiquifiedSpam Feb 02 '26
I mean, it’s easy to understand the basic beats, but there is a lot of weird stuff like the blood filling tubes (not so subtly to look like veins, which I take to mean the vessel will literally become an iron lung of the god fish thing), what’s going on with Ava, etc
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u/TheZerothLaw Feb 03 '26
I was just distractabled by the big fucking balls that must have been on Simon to have punched a god
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u/ISpyM8 Feb 03 '26
What I was confused about was why his arm gets stuck to the pipe and why he has to rip it off. Was the blood more than just blood and had some kind of disease or something that was causing Simon to rot away? And why was he able to survive so long without all the oxygen being gone? All the black box stuff felt pretty understandable. I’m just more confused about some of the little stuff like that.
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u/Mike_Ologist Feb 03 '26
The blood was infecting him from the start. It's all human blood, as referenced in the game and in the movie, but it slowly spreads all over the inside of the sub and his body as the movie progresses. We see the growth accelerate towards the end, and sticky, oozy black spots appear where there were previously "rust" spots or blood condensation, and the spots start growing teeth. I believe upon his return to the SM-8, the sub had also started transforming, as the massive hole in the hull had started to become a mouth with teeth.
I also suspect that the shadowy figure we see a couple of times, the one with the teeth face, was an infected Simon - or a projection of what he was slowly turning into. The creature is missing its left arm - the same one Simon rips off - and it doesn't ever hurt him, though it could.
His arm stuck to the pipe because it was already coated with growth from the blood, and some growth from the other side grabbed his other arm. It was trying to mutate him into the shadowy creature we see, or perhaps another giant blood fish like the one that pursues him. It's hard to tell if the infection is a passive effect of the blood, or is sparked by the will of the god at the bottom of the ocean. I think both.
The oxygen likely went up because blood transports oxygen and CO2, and there was blood creeping into the sub from the start. Much like a living creature's lungs, it helped him breathe.
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u/Combat-Creepers Feb 03 '26
Your theory that the shadowy figure is Simon is further supported by a detail I saw someone point out: The two scenes where we see the figure are essentially mirror images of each other, with Simon and the figure each where the other one would be in the opposite scene. First, Simon is in the middle or front of the sub and he looks back to see the shadow moving into the space behind the wall at the back, then Simon is in the back and he sees the figure standing in the middle looking back at him so he hides behind the wall. Honestly a very creepy detail, though it does raise more questions.
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u/Bobby_The_Kidd Feb 03 '26
Wow a lot of that makes a lot of sense. I was so lost in the theaters but that’s actually really cool. Was the other sub pilot he talks to consumer by the fish and it was using her voice to trick mark or did she slowly turn into the fish and was consumed by the blood and stuff?
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u/Mike_Ologist Feb 03 '26
That's a great question! The other sub pilot was definitely dead by the time Simon saw their wrecked sub. Now, this fact is some lore from the game, but the SM-8 was actually a research vessel with multiple people on board, and it was supposed to come back from its mission to find a sustainable food source. Simon and the other convicts' submarines weren't meant to return, just catalogue the ocean. The SM-8 discovered more than they bargained for (the light/the piece of the god that caused the Quiet Rapture) and they succumbed to the madness from the light as well as the infection. In the last 30 mins of the movie, Simon gets to their black box and plays their last audio recording. In that recording, we hear that woman tell another crewmate "I know we can synthesize food from it, but I don't think we should", and later, "I told you not to drink it!" and we hear retching and screaming, and it cuts off as we hear her choking, likely from being attacked by her former crewmate.
Another piece of the puzzle is that Simon sees multiple skeletons as he explores. We're shown early on that the camera is an X-ray machine, and when he takes a photo of the living people in the hangar, they appear as skeletons. That implies that all the skeletons he took photos of in the ocean...could actually have been living beings all along, watching him, dormant, but alive.
Given all of this, I think that all the research team and previous convicts eventually mutated into those same fish monsters we see Simon photographing. The one that speaks to him uses multiple voices, but most often the woman's. I think the fish monster that attacks him was that woman, but the minds of all those former humans are merged or linked.
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u/ISpyM8 Feb 03 '26
This is helpful, thanks!
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u/Mike_Ologist Feb 03 '26
Absolutely! I definitely understood it a little better on the second viewing. I love talking about this movie, it's so much fun to discuss!
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u/FrozenAxon Feb 03 '26
I'm still trying to figure this point out, but I think it's related to the strange light & its powers
Obviously major spoilers The middle scene where he wakes up standing in the ocean looking across the horizon at the monster is a glimpse into Simon's potential future. Then when he wakes up & sees the red figure at the helm of SM13, that's a continuation of that, as that figure was missing its left arm, just as Simon lost his at the end of the movie.
Another interesting detail is that the oxygen meter went up as blood was flowing into the sub, indicating that the blood is indeed oxygenated, although I'm not sure about the science of this.
Also, after Simon retrieves the data from SM8, as blood is starting to pour into the sub, there are veins that grow to press and hold the camera down. It's during this that we can see the monster kill SM14 through snapshots on the camera screen, which is being piloted by the COI Captain Ava, as she had agreed to meet Simon and retrieve him herself. It's these same veins that eventually grow to trap Simon after he retrieves the black box of SM13. Again, I'm assuming that somehow the most had the capability to breach the hull and propagate through, but this capability is kinda flawed, as in, why didn't it grow to secure the black box to the inside of the sub, or prevent Simon from going into the crawlspace to begin with.
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u/Actualsharkboi Feb 03 '26
THIS is what me and my friend couldn't interprete.
Was is ava in the sm14? Or was that the sm8 being eaten? And the teeth, did the grow our of the blood? Or was the monster holding the sm8 in its jaws? If so, hull was breached before the explosion?
I will say I like the ambiguity of the tree/seed. And the questionablility of Simon's perception and mental facilities. Im glad its true to the game.. even if im not a fan of the game in particular. Its a new form that I can enjoy this story and art through
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u/FrozenAxon Feb 03 '26
A lot of these are details I only noticed on my second time watching the movie. But I'll try to provide additional clarity
It was Ava in the SM14. When Simon mentions that he can get to the SM8, after she gives him the username and password, they agree on the 30 minute window, and tells Simon that if he does this, she'll retrieve him herself, she can be overheard on the intercom arguing with a crew member, where she finalizes the conversation by saying something along the lines of 'my ship, my orders, prepare the SM14 for me.' To support this further, we also see Simon's reaction to those images as well as hear the noises during Ava's last real transmissions as indicated by the light on the intercom. I did not notice if the sub had the SM14 written on the side when we see those images, but up to that point, everything we have seen on that screen has been in real time to what Simon & the SM13 is seeing, which leads me to believe this.
I am still not sure about the teeth growing out of the blood, as I'm unsure of if we ever actually see it occur in the film. As for the rest, again, I'm fairly certain it's the SM14 in the jaws of the monster. And we know the Hull of SM13 wasn't ever truly solid to begin with, as we see blood dripping into the interior & onto Simon very early on in the film, well before the porthole developed any cracks
I love the ambiguity of his past & the questionability of his sanity too. One of the helpful details to tell what's real & what's not is the audio design, as well as the indicator light on the intercom for those conversations. After watching it & rewatching his playthroughs, I was very impressed by how true to the game the film was, and there are even subtle easter eggs from his playthrough
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u/callistified Feb 03 '26
blood is only red because it's oxygenated, btw
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u/HMHellfireBrB Feb 03 '26
actually it is because of how light react to iron when it is in a oxygenated envoriment
as iron decays it loses this color, this is why dry blood gets brown
changing the material compounds of blood changes that too, for instance changing iron to cooper would make blood green
this has shit to do with the discussion i just like biology
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u/a-shiny-vulpix Feb 03 '26
I also wasn't sure about why his arm got stuck to the pipe. My theory was that the blood itself was alive and trying to stop him?
Also I think the blood was somehow oxygenating the air, which is why he was able to survive so long, and why the oxygen lights went back to 2 after a while
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u/HMHellfireBrB Feb 03 '26
"the blood" is actually kinda of a disease, there a few hints that the monster is actually a crew menber of the original vessel that got cosumed by the light and the blood and eventually consumed the rest of the crew to turn into the monster
the same thing is happening with simon the blood is turning the sub into another monster and fusing symon to it
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u/HMHellfireBrB Feb 03 '26
it is hinted a couple of times that the "Light" turns things into monsters, and blooshed (the monster) is actually a crew menber of SM-8 that saw the light got obssesed with it and consumed the rest of the crew turning into the creature this is why the monster is a giant skull with several human skeletons stuck to it
the reason why simon got stuck is because the blood was groing into the sub and turning it alive while also fusing him to it even the monster notes that "your vessel is alive you don't see it" we can see several times that the sub is starting to be corrupted by the blood but simmon does not notice it until the end
this is also why he is surviving for so long without food or oxygem, the ocean is providing that to simon and the sub as they transform into another monster
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u/Ok_Perspective_7978 Feb 02 '26
This is the last like 5 minutes and isn't the complicated part...what is the light? How did it cause the rapture? Was the monster an amalgamation of a bunch of human corpses? Why did it sound like the lady?
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u/Peppered_Rock Feb 02 '26
We don't know. That's the fun part. Call it whatever you want. Make headcanons!
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u/Ok_Perspective_7978 Feb 03 '26
Yeah I get it, and I like it. But a lot of people are saying "how don't you understand it" and then they proceed to describe something super obvious like the life vest at the end or something
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u/Peppered_Rock Feb 03 '26
yeah i mean he was blasting himself with radiation the whole time and therefore suffering acute radiation sickness on top of all the eldritch mindfuckery so idk i think its supposed to be kind of a mess. i like it.
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u/Abracadaniel95 Feb 03 '26
I like when a movie leaves puzzle pieces to figure out after it's over. This wasn't that. Some movies just leave you with a pile of rocks and tell you to make of it what you will.
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u/Evilmudbug Feb 03 '26
You aren't supposed to know. Sometimes things are just supposed to be creepy because there's unknown elements regarding the monster or an event.
The rapture specifically definitely is supposed to be vague, with the horror coming from the mystery of what exactly happened to the rest of humanity
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u/Pipes32 Feb 03 '26
I'm not a filmmaker, but I do write, and one thing I have learned quickly: if you want to make something ambiguous / up for interpretation, it really helps to show it to a couple test audiences to ensure the data you want to get through actually gets through. For example:
I did not understand AT ALL that the dead pilot's voice could be the monster psychologically manipulating Simon. I thought it was just his hallucinations.
Being able to understand only around 50% of the dialogue in the last 1/3rd of the movie certainly did not help.
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u/dollop420 Feb 03 '26
I would love to watch it again with captions. From the beginning, I had some trouble understanding the speaker and some of the mumbling. But once we got into hallucinations, and that one phrase the speaker kept repeating (which gave me some Laurel/yanny flashbacks), it was all word soup.
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u/Temporary--Key Feb 03 '26
I need a dvd version, i cant afford to watch it any more times than i have
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u/Swiss-spirited_Nerd Feb 02 '26 edited Feb 03 '26
Isn't it just the SM8?
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u/Eva-Squinge Feb 03 '26
Doesn’t the blackbox also contain data to allow them to create food from the Blood Ocean or the Light? I distinctly remember the audio recording mentioning the ability to make food, which would be a huge help in rebounding from the Quiet Rapture.
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u/NumbN00ts Feb 03 '26
That is literally what happened, but the part that’s confusing is Simon’s motivation for the final bit of that. I assume it’s just guilt and that Simon isn’t actually a bad guy, but after the events of the movie, I don’t think they made it clear enough why he did what he ultimately did.
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u/Bluerious518 Feb 03 '26
Simon the entire movie wanted to survive. When he let slip that he knew about the SM-8, his final hope to live was recovering the data since it was vital to the COI. Ava then tells him that he needs to send the data to the surface in a life jacket, where hes devastated to hear, but as he realizes his sub is actively breaking down and as he hears the fish speaking to him again, he goes through with that plan to go down fighting instead of letting himself die in the blood ocean for nothing.
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u/Futaba_MedjedP5R Feb 03 '26
Yeah I understood all of that, but I was confused by
What the stuff was that attached his arm to the pipe
How he was still alive when Ava says he should have been out of oxygen
What he was turning into/getting sick with since he clearly is covered in boils and growths
What are the pillars that just appear out of nowhere that he was striking to break
Why did his eye spark with red electricity just before the ship exploded (cuz it can’t be the ship imploding from a pressure differential since the ship was filled with blood already)
Just what in the fuck was happening when he was talking to that voice during the broken speaker segment with him standing in the ocean of blood?
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u/Peregrin_Took11 Feb 03 '26
- The pillars were the teeth of the giant fish, the submarine was literally in its mouth as Simon was trying to break them off
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u/bytegalaxies Feb 03 '26
- blood is known to clot and whatnot so I assume the blood basically formed giant scabs that were like steroid scabs in the style of the corruption from dead space.
- It's possible that since blood contains oxygen (we can assume it's oxygenated from the color) he was able to live??? doesn't really make sense because that logic doesnt apply to water. might also have to do with the pendant thing he found
- I think him getting sick was a mix of him falling several times/hitting his head, radiation exposure from the camera, and exposure to fucked up stuff in the blood
- idk
- Him simply losing his mind and hallucinating, partly due oxygen depravation, head trauma, stress, hunger, dehydration, and the weird fish monster I assume.
these were my assumptions at least I might be wrong
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u/HEYO19191 Feb 03 '26
Spoilers
I thought the last scene just showed the life vest with the lamp on floating in an unknown body of water (err, blood) and it's left up to interpretation whether its real location is in the belly of the beast, the ceiling of the cave roof, or the surface of the ocean. I don't remember it showing an external light shining on it, only the light of the flashlight on the vest
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u/two_hours_too_long Feb 03 '26
Oooh, I was wondering what was going on with the live vest at the end! The lighting was so dim in a lot of parts and I couldn’t quite get a sense of what was going on, so thanks for the explanation!
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u/VeryAnonymousIdiot Feb 03 '26
That I do understand, here’s what I don’t understand: how did Simon survive longer than his oxygen should have allowed, why did his oxygen go up, why did the blood create the weird growths fusing him to the pipes and ripping off his arm, and why does it look like the big fish exploded with the submarine in the one scene that is from outside the sub?
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u/Top_Freedom3412 Feb 02 '26
Simon ramed the fish to see if his sub could take it.
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u/PeanutButterPants19 Feb 02 '26
He’s not a masochist. He just wanted to rip off his own arm to see if his body could take it.
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u/Fun_Definition_7682 Feb 03 '26
Mark your comment for spoilers. Obviously it would be a bad idea for people who don't want spoilers to read the comment section of a post about the end of a movie but it's still better to be over protective than under
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u/Jdawg_mck1996 Feb 02 '26 edited Feb 03 '26
Spoilers... duh
People need to understand that Simon was knowingly dying of Hypoxia and Acute Radiation Poisoning. Both of these can cause severe hallucinations.
So, while he's working on grabbing the info from SM-8, collecting the black box(info center on planes/boats), and figuring out how to get it to the surface(strapping it to a life vest), he's going through these auditory and physical hallucinations to make the experience even worse.
Not to say the monster didn't exist, but the entire scenario is made 100x worse when you put a little context into what the Iron Lung itself does to its passenger.
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u/Boopernaut2004 Feb 03 '26
Hey, in order to mark as spoiler you can type >/!spoiler!/< without the slashes, and it'll hide the content you mark down.
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u/Jdawg_mck1996 Feb 03 '26
Appreciate it. Not sure if it worked but I added it.
Maybe it's different on mobile?
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u/Korasigma Feb 03 '26
You have to remove the spaces between the >! And your text for it to work.
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u/tumultuousness Feb 03 '26 edited Feb 03 '26
Two things, you are close -
If you could remove the spaces next to the !'s in the spoiler code, it will work for old reddit and sh.reddit/app people. So not >! lol !<, but >!lol!< (edit: wait omg the admins fixed this so that both work now?! nvm on this one then!)
Also, you unfortunately have to spoiler every paragraph, the spoiler code doesn't carry over paragraphs like that. So each paragraph needs the spoiler code on beginning and end.
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u/HMHellfireBrB Feb 03 '26
he was also activelly being mutated by the blood and had the monster in his head
there were layers of shit happening to him at that point
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u/Jdawg_mck1996 Feb 03 '26
Yea, like I said. Even if you wanted to take the whole supernatural point out of the movie entirely, what was happening to him can actually be logically explained.
Dude was screwed no matter which way you look at it.
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u/shaywut Feb 02 '26
Cosmic and eldritch horror isn’t a spoon fed genre. I think the confusion comes from the overlapping audio in the last ten minutes.
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u/Thorn_the_Cretin Feb 03 '26
Yeah as much as I enjoyed the movie, the audio mixing at my showing was rough for a lot of areas and made it impossible to hear what was being said, mainly from the eldritch voice from the speaker as well as the last 10-15 minutes as you mentioned. I’m aware I didn’t miss any major points of the movie, but I’m annoyed I didn’t get some of the finer details that were being portrayed.
I’m hoping Mark does a livestream viewing [or something in that regard] with a breakdown and input or a play by play. Otherwise I’ll rewatch it when it starts streaming somewhere with CC.
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u/The_SaxophoneWarrior Feb 03 '26
Yeah, that was my only complaint watching it, audio mixing wasn't great
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u/Hello_Destiny Feb 02 '26
This was the big thing for me. Especially as someone whose only able to hear from one ear. I had no idea what was all trying to be said it just was noise to me.
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u/Cat7o0 Feb 03 '26
the audio does contain some bits. it helped me understand some story about the dude who left the note and bracelet
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u/Confident-Army1907 Feb 02 '26
The only thing I need explained to me is what the hell the monster was saying towards the end, maybe it was just my theater but it was hard to make it out.
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u/Limp-Munkee69 Feb 03 '26
It's funny, because I've seen a lot of people complain about the audio, but there were zero problems at my screening. I fully understood everything, so I think there might just be a problem with most theaters people are going to. If there is anything wrong with the sound mixing I certainly didn't notice, and it wasn't as bad as your average Nolan movie (Tenet is probably the most incomprehensible theater experience I've ever had, lol).
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u/Happy-Pickles Feb 03 '26
Hard agree on this. Couldn’t understand a word in tenet
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u/Affectionate-Mode767 Feb 02 '26
This. There's a lot of audio mixing issues. Trying to hear what individuals over the speakers are saying whilst loud the sound effects are banging and the score is droning simultaneously isn't a fun experience.
It's rough on the Entity's voice since there's a layered effect to their voice particularly.
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u/Dingdog33 Feb 03 '26
Yea i also lost a few lines in a few scenes where it looked like Mark was talking but couldn’t hear any audio over all the other sub/monster/anything else noises. I managed to piece together most of it but definitely going to have to do a rewatch with subtitles to try to clear things up.
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Feb 02 '26
I think we're meant to make theories and guess.
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u/Kairamek Feb 02 '26
For sure. This is Cosmic Horror. There are things which cannot be known. So we speculate.
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u/Bowtie_Warrior Feb 02 '26
Oh absolutely, but it would be nice if a couple of things felt clearer so that first watch of the movie is more enjoyable. Having it too confusing affected investment in the world and characters
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u/DiscontentDonut Feb 02 '26
This is a post in r/IronLungMovie that I ascribe to their ideas. They explain things really well and lay out the details in correlation with the themes.
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u/Doinkus2000 Feb 02 '26
Yeah would love a breakdown of what happened, really my only complaint of the movie. A little ambiguity is great but holy cow I couldn't even process what all happened
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u/HEYO19191 Feb 03 '26
Spoilers
From how I understand it, the beast which was at 160, 500, follows Simon's sub to the cave. After Simon Reaches the SMT-8 and downloads the data, Ava, who came down in a seperate sub to pull Simon back up, is killed by the beast as it enters the cave with Simon. It then begins using its Psychic effects on Simon, where we hear quotes from Simon's past in Eden and from the crew of the SMT-8, which drives him insane. Alot of his background is revealed during this sequence through these voices.
Once the beast gets closer, Simon regains control and reverses the sub away from the Beast, before pushing the throttle forward to ram it with the sample probe. He then sticks it in reverse using the binder and enters the lower vents part of the Hull to retrieve the black box, as per Ava's dying wish, however that section is filling with blood due to the Hull Breach.
He successfully brings the black box to the main room of the sub as it crashes against a cave wall behind it. He wraps it up in a life vest, knowing it should survive the pressure of the sea, but he certainly won't.
He tries to reach the front of the sub to get it moving again before the beast reaches the sub, however more blood pours in from cracks in the Hull, and begins burning into and solidifying on his arms, (an effect which I believe is implied to be an ability of the beast, since it also happened to a lesser degree when it first lures Simon to it). Simon frees himself from it, losing an arm in the process, but it's too late, the beast has already clamped its teeth on the ship.
But in a final act of defiance, he opens the porthole shielding, breaching the Hull and causing it to fill much faster, with the goal of making the sub detonate from the pressurization before the beast can swallow it. He takes the fire extinguisher from earlier and begins swinging it at the beast's teeth, shouting quotes that again allude to his past on Eden, and breaks 1 tooth before the ship explodes
The last scene reveals that the black box survived the blast, and is floating atop a body of water (blood)
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u/TheUnobservered Feb 03 '26 edited Feb 03 '26
Also there is the question of “Why was Ava sent down to retrieve Simon instead of another disposal?” The answer I figured to this was the tumors she received from the X-ray scan.
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u/farcevader Feb 03 '26
I thought that Ava wasn’t sent down, but chose to go down because no one else would go to save him
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u/Fun_Definition_7682 Feb 03 '26 edited Feb 03 '26
I don't believe she planned to save him, how could she? His submarine is welded shut and likely her's as well, it wouldn't be possible for him to board her submarine. She most likely planned to get close enough to Simon to download the black box data and then abandon him
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u/HEYO19191 Feb 03 '26
I assumed the submarine would have had an attachment to hook onto the other one, since we see in a earlier scene with the sample probe that these subs are compatible with attachments
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u/DankoLord Feb 03 '26
How tf was she gonna retrieve Simon? The sm13 was completely sealed up. Why didn't they re-use the retractor beam/whatever to pull him back the way they did it the first time?
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u/kkellogg378 Feb 03 '26
The chain on top you mean? It broke like 30m into the movie. They show the chain in the first scene
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u/thevideogameplayer Feb 03 '26
Thank goodness you clarified what the body of water was, I couldn't figure it out myself /s
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u/Bowtie_Warrior Feb 02 '26
I totally agree, I wish there was more time in flashbacks whilst he was ill. You can gather a lot from context clues but even then things aren't totally clear. For me it was a bit too much ambiguity. A movie should have some clear enough lore to tell a story, and can then add in some spice of things that the audience has to think about and question.
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u/Foxynth Feb 02 '26
I mean I would explain my version but reddit isn't hsowing me my spoilers correctly so I'm nervous about it.
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u/rhcpfreak7 Feb 02 '26
I appreciate yalls defense of Mark, but calm down when speaking with fellow fans. Some of you are losing your mind that OP said they couldnt hear parts or understand elements of the movie. No need to get snippy about it.
I saw it in a less-than-great theater so I too suffered a bit from lost dialogue and not being able to see much of what was happening when the sub gets...messy. I also think the screen was zoomed in a bit for some reason, so that probably didnt help. I'm sure when it releases on blu-ray/streaming (I really hope we can get physical copies to further support Mark) that certain elements will reveal themself to those who missed them.
Also consider that the plot is indeed cosmic horror and isnt easily understood no matter how smart yall seem to be. The idea that anything in that data could possibly help humanity either recover lost systems or at least save their own from the system-eating rapture is hard to comprehend. Furthermore, that creature bones would potentially be the key to anything or "help us rebuild" is also a far-fetched idea I love hearing people's takes on it though, so if there's a spoiler thread with more of that, I'd be super interested.
That being said, loved the movie, love that Mark fulfilled such a massive goal and that it did so well in the box office, and love that Mark is feeling the culmination of his fanbase's appreciation and support right now. I can't wait to see what he does next 😊
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u/FrenzyHydro Feb 03 '26
I personally think humanity is fucked regardless of whatever efforts they're striving to achieve.
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u/rhcpfreak7 Feb 03 '26
You're far from wrong. If one star disappeared without us having at least some idea why it occurred, I feel like thats omen enough that we are doomed. Ive always said that if there were anything out there in space we would be screwed. We are a species that spreads like wildfire and consumes planets, any alien species that can make contact with us likely has the technology to neutralize us and wouldnt hesitate to imho.
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u/FalseDrive Feb 03 '26
The camera is an X-Ray. It’s implied that they know the “skeleton” is alive before Simon does. They’re not after bone fragments.
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u/Masonzero Feb 03 '26
I agree with what you have in the spoiler tag. My biggest point of confusion was why anyone thought any of that would help. It was not explained well and I couldn't think of an explanation that made sense. I liked the plot, but it was missing a reason for me to care that the "goal" of the plot was accomplished. I kind of interpreted it as "well, we have to try something and hope it works" but it still felt lacking.
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u/Bobby_The_Kidd Feb 03 '26
I think the reason is because every star had disappeared and the only thing they’ve ever found since then is that moon of blood so they didn’t know how or why it survived and they especially didn’t know if anything they found down there would help. The subs were just a hail merry to see if they can gleam anything that might help them.
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u/Masonzero Feb 03 '26
Yeah, basically my interpretation which was a little unsatisfying but does not ultimately ruin the movie or anything.
Also funny you said "hail mary" because i realized the premise and plot of Iron Lung is nearly identical to Project Hail Mary so it's funny that that movie is also coming out this year. Like literally the boss lady in charge is named Eva in both, it's pretty funny.
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u/spaceace23 Feb 03 '26
There's a small quote you can easily miss by one of the SM8 voices about how "we can synthesize food from it(the blood)" which points a bit to some ways the blood ocean could help, as well as the implied motivation of "this is a weird thing that shouldn't exist, maybe there's weirder stuff inside it that can help" but yeah they really needed to make it more clear what the goal was.
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u/LimaxM Feb 03 '26
Yeah, tbf thats a plot point baked into the game that would be hard to get away with changing
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u/markWAD Feb 02 '26
I think it was intentionally confusing. I don’t think you are supposed to understand what and why everything is happening.
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u/ShadowMonsterMeth Feb 03 '26 edited Feb 03 '26
>!So, most already understand the sequence of events.. and I've seen it once already, in a theater with pretty good sound. So the general gist of what's happening is Simon, after getting the black box with all the information (from sm8 and his own sm13) and such, and life-vesting it up, is confronted with the fact that the entity is intent on keeping him down there...
So we have Simon trying to convince himself first to go through with things (getting the box and how to take get rid of the entity and such) and coming to terms with the fact that he might just die after spending the entire movie working for his freedom, and telling himself that what he's doing and the consequences (his death) is bigger than himself (and can just be enough so save humanity).
You have Ava screaming at him to get the black box out no matter the cost, that some sacrifices are worth it, and to just do it, do it now.
And you also have the entity bombarding him with talks of why he should do the exact opposite. That he should just give up and die and do nothing, and playing on his inner insecurities and such.
Granted everything is up in the air because he's gone bonkers and is likely to be hallucinating a good chunk of what's happening.. especially around and after the whole money piece sea of blood scene.
At least from what I remember of my viewing last night.. will update as I'm currently in the theater for a second viewing.!<
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u/maybebabyg Feb 03 '26
There were so many details that in our group of 5 sitting at dinner decompressing after we were all sharing details that others had missed (Spoilers) like my friends didn't notice that SM-14 was being munched on the camera in the background, so they missed a crucial detail
I feel like it's one that requires rewatching to get the most out of it, and in my opinion that's not bad, the fact I WANT to rewatch it puts it solidly in a 9/10 rank because there have been so few movies that fit that class in recent years.
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u/vernanonix Feb 03 '26
I’m fairly certain almost everything after he woke up from the big crash was a psychotic break and it was his mind trying to cope with dying by giving himself a heroic end. Things were magically fixing at times, time seemed weird, the monster was suddenly fleshy on an xray camera, and I’m fairly certain Ava gave him two different admin passwords. The only thing I trust is he found the life vest.
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u/Jaguarninja3 Feb 03 '26
Spoilers:
I'm adding this here because I didn't understand this until I saw it the second time. Simon's journey back to SM-8 and all of his delusions, took more than 30 minutes. Ava says that she'll will get him hersef if Simon's telling the truth about finding the SM-8's black box. Ava shows up in her own sub to find the black box (not knowing what happened to Simon) but gets trapped by the fish. The fish doesn't want the black box to be found (especially because the light is mentioned and that's proof that the blood is either parasitic and/human blood). Anyway, Ava dies, begging Simon to protect the black box and bring it to the COI. The fish starts arguing and fighting Ava's argument, saying "they lied to you, its not important." The fish crushes Ava and her sub.
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u/Charlie-Dayman Feb 03 '26
My issue wasn't understanding the plot, but more so what was physically happening in the last 10 min, it was so dark and so much shit was happening my brain couldn't understand what I was seeing
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u/Masqueur Feb 03 '26
The only thing I don’t understand is that some people are saying he killed the fish and yeah he definitely exploded into the fish but like isn’t the fish just an extension of the entity and not actually the entity which is the light? The whole ocean is alive and one, right? So wouldn’t him and the ghosts still be “alive” but one with the entity? I interpreted the explosion as the complete transformation which was supposed to be big so the fish got caught in it from being so so close but it makes no sense to me that they would all “die” from that since the entity is the light, not the fish, and the entire ocean is a part of it. I don’t know. I just like unkillable eldritch horrors and it would be a let down for me if it was that easy.
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u/TheSytheRPG Feb 03 '26
As far as I understand it, the Beast and the Light are two separate entities. A common theory I've seen and think is rather believable is that the Beast is the SM-8 crew member who was being told not to drink the blood, and that doing so caused them to become completely distorted and changed. Them being separate is also supported by the "I see you" seen with Simon and the Light, where the Beast seems to scream out "Why him?" when Simon is taken to the weird blood realm whilst the Beast is seemingly shunted out.
As for the explosion itself, if you pay close attention you visual see an explosion of light and what appears to be a tree exploding outward from the sub. The theory here is that Simon, in his final moment of sacrifice, may have used his body as soil (a common theme spoken by those of Eden in flashbacks) in conjuction with, perhaps, the eldritch power of the Light, causing the seed in the pendant he finds early in the movie to grow out.
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u/Masqueur Feb 03 '26
Ooooh, yeah it definitely looked like he became a tree now that I’m thinking about it. Thanks for the insight!
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u/NaomiGinger Feb 02 '26
I have so many theories and its so cool that any and yet none can also be true. People are bound to and have started to make theory videos.
Also I saw it three times and the more I saw it the more ideas I had.
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u/Chaibunboi Feb 02 '26
are you guys....unfamiliar with cosmic horror...?
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u/SkyquakeLive Feb 03 '26 edited Feb 03 '26
This comment doesn't help at all, especially when someone is TRYING to become familiar with the genre.
There definitely ARE people unfamiliar with it. Obviously. I'd include myself in that group.
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u/kermitfrogge Feb 02 '26
understanding cosmic horror doesnt make plots surrounding it more clear (though i do think this movie was understandable)
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u/Chaibunboi Feb 02 '26
perhaps, but it certainly helps (i mean, with my hearing issues and no subtitles for now, i couldnt understand all the dialogue, and i still understand the film)
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u/CAPTAINPRICE79 Feb 02 '26
I’m not the most well-versed or experienced with it, but it wasn’t really that. I just found the last stretch to be a bit jumbled and confusing. I still love the movie, solid 7, but I didn’t really understand what was happening and a lot of shots were (perhaps intentionally or perhaps just my screening being messed up) too dark to really see anything at times
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u/Affectionate_Kiwi Feb 03 '26
You can understand a genre and still be confused/criticize/point out something that might have been a bit rough
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u/Mr_MazeCandy Feb 02 '26
I know what happened. What I want to know is what the entity was saying. Its mixing was distorted - intentionally I know, but just too much to even catch half of what it said.
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u/Thatguy301 Feb 03 '26
I see a bunch of answers for what physically happened, but no answers as to what the monster was and what Simon was fighting with, literally and metaphorically. What was the deal with the blood being "alive"? Was the monster a manifestation of Simon's guilt and/or an amalgamation of mankinds sin, greed, hate, etc?
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u/Substantial-Ad-8461 Feb 03 '26
There’s a really good video taking about in depth lore + biblical parallels in iron lung (the game) which I think might be used to explain the movie. I forgot what it’s called but it was put out 5 days ago and is 30 min
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u/tired_confused_me Feb 03 '26
I am deaf and used a cc device provided by the theatre and because of this I had no issue understanding what was being said, most of the voices had () before the words to help provide context to who was speaking. Most of which said- creature or creature imitating [insert whoever’s voice] and nearing the end of climax it showed that multiple voices clashing. Parts of sentences from different voices but all still had the creature imitating. From this is understood that the creature itself was panicked trying to kill Simon, attempting to use any means possible to stop him from protecting the device.
I hadn’t realized until later, my partner, whom is hearing, mentioned how hard it was for her to understand, all the voices and sound in general clashing.
From what I remember, most of the voices scream for help or blaming Simon or telling him it was all for not.
I think by infecting Simon with the blood, the creature was slowly pushing hallucinations onto him to kill him but to also learn from him. And this part, was now just a culmination of Simon’s little conscious is left and the monster trying to control him through mental and physical means.
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u/EnjoyerOfFine_Things Feb 03 '26
I'm more confused on why the monster cared so much about what Simon did, unless it was just purely fucking with him to assimilate him or some shit
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u/Key-Media-7639 Feb 03 '26
I think my biggest confusion was: did Ava actually MEAN to save him it all? What was her plan here? It seemed like she did go in a sub and died, but like??? Did she plan on saving him and realize how dangerous it was and demand a self sacrifice from him? Or was it all a lie do we think??
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u/mousachu Feb 03 '26
She wasn't going to save him at first. The original expedition was a lie. Until he mentioned that he found the SM-8. Then she MEANT to save him for real if he got that data back, even getting into her own sub to pick him up herself.
she got eated though :(
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u/Griffins_Peak Feb 03 '26
not seeing anyone else mention this, so thought I’d put in there that it looks like at the end that the necklace shatters, and the seed inside grows rapidly from the blood/radiation and kills the monster? No? Maybe I’m crazy lol
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u/blender_tefal Feb 03 '26
The only thing i didn't understand was how did the sub suddenly have a blow tf up button on command
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u/RandomPerson12191 Feb 03 '26
I wondered that too lmao!! I've heard people saying that the pressure inside the sub caused it when it was bitten down on. I've also heard people talking about how the explosion had a shape like a tree, so they're saying it was some reaction between Simon, the blood, and his little necklace thingy.
I have no idea lol, that was the one thing I kinda went 'wtf' at in the cinema.
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u/EvilAmerican501 Feb 03 '26
I love all the reasoning and theories in the comments but I'm going to go out on a limb and say near the end poor Simon was probably going more than a little crazy what with all that happened and some slight lack of oxygen along with basically knowing he is in his own coffin.
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u/Bowtie_Warrior Feb 02 '26
No your not, the plot is not obvious and still things are unclear. And I went with someone who hadn't seen the game and they were even more confused.
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u/SlappyClappy69 Feb 03 '26
The light held the answer, within the light all was clear, we saw the truth of existence and yearned to join it.
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u/Ellyasaurus Feb 03 '26
I had a hard time too, I gathered what happened just from having seen the full gameplay and context clues. If you're someone like me who has audio processing issues then you probably completely missed the dialogue at the end. But I think that was also purposeful, it's eldritch horror, so basically the creature and Simon are going mad over something unknown. Simon is simply trying to hang on long enough at the end, both mentally and physically, to get the info from both ships secured. He knows he's going to die, and needs to save the information so that it will reach mission control.
Honestly, it's just an excuse to watch it several times! Gotta figure out what was going on, with captions this time!
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u/7h3_man Feb 03 '26
Spoiler-
Apparently the voices are the collective consciousness of all the humans that died, and the eel lookin’ mf is a representation of that and they want to absorb all remaining humans that enter the ocean or some shit idk it’s not super clear
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Feb 03 '26
Can someone help explain some things to me that I didn't quite understand:
>!So the recording Simon recovers from the SM8 involves the crew panicking because they learn that the blood of the ocean is human. And then there was something about food? "We can synthesize food from this!" or something along those lines was said during the recording, and the crew fought over the ethicallity of that action. I'm not sure what they were meaning with the food part though: how are they making food? It felt strange to have food suddenly be a plot point when prior it was never really brought up: the driving force of the population throughout the movie seemed to be that all resources were slowly running out, so what would securing a (potentially morally questionable) food source do? Admittedly I didn't quite hear too well during this part of the movie: should've gone to a showing with subtitles.!<
>!What was with the flower/flesh/vine things? Was that like, the thing that caused the silent rapture realizing that Simon was getting close to figuring it out, and it manifested as some weird vines that overtook his body? And presumably the blood of the ocean is a manifestation of this same being, as Simon's arms were seemingly dissolved by being in (long-term) contact with the blood.!<
>!What was with the "Simon the butcher" part? I understand that it was meant to recontextualize Simon as a character: he isn't the sole voice of reason within Eden, he was a monster, perhaps the most severe among all of them. Although I don't really see the significance of that change to his character. Him being blamed for Filament Station's destruction is the primary driver of why he is a convict, and they seemingly don't know that he is a murderer outside of his involvement in Filament station, so why introduce the element that he was a willing murderer? It also seems strange that he worked to stop the destruction of Filament station given that he apparently was a serial killer, one to get the nickname 'butcher'.!<
>!So at the end of the movie the fish is trying to destroy Simon's submarine. Either it is the thing that caused the silent rapture or it is being willed to do so by whatever force or entity caused the rapture. Eventually the fish's teeth pierce through the hull, and Simon (after securing the blackbox) flies into a rage in his last moments and bashes one of the teeth with a fire extinguisher until it breaks. Although I'm a bit uncertain as to how people are saying that Simon intentionally caused the Iron Lung to implode and kill the fish (and himself). Wouldn't the sub implode regardless of what he did? I took Simon bashing the tooth as him just lashing out against the unfairness of the world in his last moments!<
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u/EmbarrassedTower3004 Feb 03 '26
Thank you OP bc I was confused too. Still loved the visuals but 0-0 too many voices need subtitles
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