Icy thrills abound in Dead Of Winter, indie sci-fi horror Iron Lung is one for the gamers

Dead Of Winter (PG13)

98 minutes, opens on March 5
★★★☆☆

The story: Emma Thompson produces and stars as an American widow who witnesses a kidnapping while trekking alone through remote northern Minnesota to scatter her husband’s ashes. Amid a blizzard, hours from the nearest town and with no phone service, she is the victim’s only hope.

No one will mistake Dead Of Winter by Irish director Brian Kirk for Sense And Sensibility, the 1995 Jane Austen period romance that won British thespian Thompson an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.

But an efficient little thriller is equally a good thing. And sense and sensibility are the very essence of Thompson’s folksy mid-westerner Barb as she sets out with intelligence, grit and resilience to rescue the terrified teen girl (Laurel Marsden) chained in a cabin basement.

Barb is energised by her new-found purpose. There is no longer time to grieve, despite the lengthy flashbacks to her happy marriage (Thompson’s daughter Gaia Wise plays her younger counterpart) that interrupt the story’s flow.

The captors are a desperate armed couple. The husband (Marc Menchaca) is a sap she handily disables with a sledgehammer through his foot.

The wife (Judy Greer), though, is a psycho, sucking fentanyl lollipops while slashing and shooting at Barb in angry pursuit. With characteristic toughness, Barb repurposes a fish hook to stitch up her bullet wound.

It is bracing to see Thompson turn action heroine at 66.

The likeable Greer is also cast against type. What she has planned for the hostage is more chilling than the sub-zero climes, and in the infinite expanse of the frigid, unforgiving wilderness, the two women descend into a knock-down drag-out fight unto death.

Hot take: Fargo (2014) it is not, but it has its own strong female lead and icy thrills.

Iron Lung (NC16)

125 minutes, opens on March 5
★★★☆☆

The story: In a future when all stars and planets have been obliterated, a lone convict (Mark Fischbach) welded inside the eponymous Iron Lung submarine searches a literal ocean of blood for life-sustaining resources. Success will earn him his freedom, or he dies trying.

The US$3 million (S$3.8 million) American indie sci-fi flick Iron Lung has grossed more than US$50 million worldwide, with early screenings selling out in Singapore.

That is fan loyalty – to American developer David Szymanski’s 2022 submarine simulation video game of the same name, and to YouTube personality Fischbach (alias Markiplier), who financed, directed, scripted, edited and headlines the feature adaptation.

But pity the uninitiated. Two hours is too long a time for anyone, really, to be confined alongside Markiplier’s condemned hero Simon as he pilots the rusty vessel by studying a three-ring-binder instruction manual under poor lighting, fumbles with controls and talks to static intercom voices.

Amid the monotony, one’s mind may wander off to the similar single-location solitary lunar mission of British director Duncan Jones’ Moon (2009), with its inquiry into the meaning of being human.

Markiplier’s chamber drama has no such deep thoughts, nor any glimpse of the larger mythology outside the hull.

Still, the 36-year-old Hawaiian is an amiable presence, like a low-budget Keanu Reeves, and his film-making debut, whatever the narrative limitations, has qualities to admire.

It has grungy claustrophobic atmosphere and technical know-how, plus 300,000 litres of fake blood during the final descent into a collision of psychological and cosmic horror.

Most winningly for the gamers, it has an insider’s understanding of and love for the source material.

Hot take: The cinematic phenomenon of 2026 is less interesting as a movie than as a paradigm shift towards a new era of online-driven passion projects, away from the traditional studio model.