Ice Cream Man, 2026.
Directed by Eli Roth.
Starring Charlie Zeltzer, Kiori Mirza Waldman, Carina Battrick, Ivano DiCaro, Ari Millen, Ric Reid, and Eli Roth.
SYNOPSIS:
An idyllic summer town descends into madness when an ice cream man serves kids sweet delights with horrifying results.
Love him or hate him, you can guarantee that when a new Eli Roth movie hits then it is going to cause controversy. Having helped usher in torture porn with Hostel and its sequel back in the 2000s, Roth is a filmmaker who likes to push boundaries whilst wearing his influences on his sleeve, an approach that sometimes works very well – like with 2023s ‘80s slasher homage Thanksgiving – and at other times shows up his storytelling shortcomings and juvenile wit, such as with 2013s cannibal throwback The Green Inferno, but which way does Ice Cream Man go?
It’s a lovely summer’s day in the quiet small town of Bayleen Bay. The sun is out, the birds are singing and the local children are out playing in the park when an old-fashioned ice cream truck pulls up, much to the children’s delight. The silent ice cream man (played by Ari Millen) hands out free ice creams to the gathered masses and everyone has an idyllic summer’s day to remember, except maybe the lactose intolerant Jared (Charlie Zeltzer) and the bulimic Mia (Kiori Mirza Waldman), although they will remember it for other reasons.
Later that night, the ice cream man drives through the town playing his chimes, which does something to all the children who consumed ice cream that day as they all get up out of bed in a zombie-like trance and begin killing their parents. At school the next morning, Jared notices that there aren’t as many students in class as usual and that when they do show up they turn on the teachers as the ice cream man appears again. Can Jared, Mia and the rest of the ragtag group of survivors find out what is going on and, more importantly, avoid the ice cream that their murderous zombie-fied classmates keep trying to feed them?
Ice Cream Man is a gratuitously gruesome black comedy with Roth – who also appears as Jared’s father Marty – clearly delighting his inner gorehound by flinging as many innards and body parts at the camera as he can whilst child actors vomit up multicoloured ice cream and bodily fluids, so be prepared as the violence is extreme and, occasionally, very funny, which is not a bad ratio for a horror comedy.
However, that really is all there is to it so it depends on your tolerance for Eli Roth being allowed to indulge in his horror fanboy fantasies as to how much enjoyment you will get out of it, because when those end credits roll there is a feeling of “Is that it?”. Roth himself says in his interview in the special features that he has had the idea of an ice cream man using ice cream to turn kids into killers since he finished making Cabin Fever back in 2002, so you would assume he’s had enough time to come up with an actual story, but no. A bit like Rob Zombie with 31, he has literally just filmed his initial idea and not fleshed it out into anything else, which makes you think this would have been a better short, or even a fake trailer like his original version of Thanksgiving.
But for all his quirky qualities, Eli Roth knows his horror and he throws in enough references to other movies to make it fun for the hardcore fans, not least Children of the Corn, which has basically the same premise but without the humour. Much has been made of the AI assistance for some of the flashback scenes, and if truth be told it is noticeable but only because online activities have trained us to look for it, and if nobody pointed it out then chances are most people would be none the wiser, although Roth choosing to use AI over other filmmaking techniques is what irked some audiences rather than how it looks, but that is a discussion for another day.
So, is Ice Cream Man a misfire for Roth? No, but if you are not accustomed to Eli Roth and his particular style of splatter then you might feel a little short-changed as this is not a horror movie for those looking for a deep narrative, nor is it a metaphor for anything. It is extremely gory, excessively violent, quite amusing and it looks great, with the practical gags being very well rendered and Roth adopting a very bright and vibrant colour palette, and for some that will be enough.
In terms of how it fits into Roth’s body of work, it’s no Hostel or Thanksgiving when it comes to serious horror credentials but it is a less frustrating watch than The Green Inferno, if only because Roth’s immature sense of humour fits the subject matter better. Sitting somewhere in the middle of his output, Ice Cream Man fills the void when you need a quick hit of something brutal and grisly, but a hastily crammed in backstory in the third act and a disappointingly flat ending leave a taste in the mouth that is certainly not as sweet as the ice cream on offer.
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Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Chris Ward
