Iron Lung Dev Talks About His Experience Working On The Iron Lung Movie

Iron Lung was one of the biggest surprise hits of 2022, a short horror game that took the internet by storm when it came out. With a movie adaptation directed by Markplier currently underway, we got an opportunity to speak with the game’s developer David Szymanski on his experience working on a movie for the first time, as well as discussing his potential future projects. 

When asked about what it was like working on a film, Szymanski talks about his involvement in the film’s production and his experience working alongside Markplier. 

It’s been awesome. There are a lot of moving parts, so I’m not always in the loop about everything, but he’s gone above and beyond to keep me involved and informed whenever possible, to the point where I was invited to the set for the duration of principle photography and have been consulted during post-production for all sorts of stuff, from edits to music to a few rewrites and even some special effects.”

He further discusses the contrast between developing for a video game and a film, highlighting the significant increase in manpower and management and the bigger scale that comes with film production.  

Probably the biggest difference between the Iron Lung movie and the games I usually work on is just the number of people involved. Iron Lung is actually a pretty small film, and its creation still involves many, many times more voices contributing to it than I’ve ever worked with in games.”

When asked if there were plans to make a movie adaptation of his breakout boomer shooter phenomenon DUSK, Szymanski wasn’t opposed to the idea but expressed that next on his list would be Squirrel Stapler. The game is a horror hunting simulator where you shoot squirrels in order to staple them onto your wife’s decaying corpse so she can become beautiful. 

I think Dusk could work as a sort of grimy action/horror film, but next on my personal list would be Squirrel Stapler. I think a lot of the basic concepts and the tone could make for a really weird and unsettling horror film if done right.”

While Szymanski was fairly tight-lipped about what to expect from the Iron Lung film, he does say that their goal is to ultimately create a good horror film. He also proceeds to discuss his future projects such as his upcoming Condemned-inspired FPS Butcher’s Creek, a standalone upgraded version of his previous game The Pony Factory, and a major update for another previous title, The Moon Sliver.