Ice Cream Man; We All Scream For a Better Movie (REVIEW)
I caught an early screening of Ice Cream Man on Monday evening at AMC's Scream Unseen. Eli Roth’s Ice Cream Man is the debut of the directors new founded company 'The Horror Section', and with other releases from the new studio on the horizon, horror fans are eager to see what Roth and co. have cooking.
The film follows a small town as a mysterious stranger rides in with an ice cream truck, handing out sweets to all the towns children. Things take a sharp turn when all the children who consume the ice cream become ravenous monsters. The film stars Charlie Zeltzer, Shiloh O'Reilly, Kiori Mirza Waldman, Sarah Abott and Ari Millen as the Ice Cream Man himself. As one can guess with the premise, the majority of the cast is children, who all give serviceable performances in their own right, and Ari Millen does a good job making creepy faces and having an on screen presence despite having pretty much no dialogue in the film. Roth himself also appears in the film in a gray area that is more than a cameo and less than a central role, he also gives himself a rather risqué line regarding looking at teenagers in bikinis, a very odd "joke" for the writer and director to give himself.
Ice Cream Man offers an interesting premise, a mysterious ice cream truck rolls through a small town, and all the children that ingest the treats that the titular ice cream man deals out become violent zombie-like creatures, almost like if the opening of Weapons took place in broad daylight, with Aunt Gladys and the Ice Cream Man being twisted pied pipers respectively. However, The films interesting concept is bogged down severely with a less than sharp script that relies more on shock value than actually capitalizing on its concepts. It goes for a half measure on both ends of the horror-comedy subgenre, with the end result being neither funny nor scary.
Aside from the lack of solid scares or jokes in the script, it also struggles with its pace, specifically in the third act. There's a set up for a ritual that must be completed to stop the wave of ravenous children, and this set up is thoroughly explained in an exposition dump and flashback scene. However as the tension mounts towards the ritual, a twist is revealed and the film just… ends. This was jarring for all the wrong reasons, as the script comes to a screeching halt just to roll credits on an admittedly neat shot. I'm all for bleak or hopeless endings in a horror film, but this didn't feel like that. It felt as if they were shooting and suddenly ran out of money and just said "let's find a good stopping place. The twist also isn't shocking enough to be an expectation subversion or set up enough to be clever or smart.
Ice Cream Man (2026)
Another glaring issue with the film is the blatant use of AI generated imagery. Specifically in a handful of animated sequences modeled after old black and white cartoons. What would be a fun visual juxtaposition is executed in a cheap and sloppy manner, making the end result look lifeless and dull. This is confirmed with Dark Half, an AI company being mentioned in the credits. This has also been confirmed by Roth himself in an article by Variety. While this is the most obvious use of AI many others have speculated other scenes utilizing the technology, and while I can't say anything for certain on scenes outside of the animated sequences, there are certainly a handful of shots that look off.
Eli Roth has built a career off of shock value in horror, and I admittedly enjoy some of his body of work in the genre. I grew up loving Hostel, I liked The Green Inferno as a teenager (though it paled in comparison to Cannibal Holocaust when I finally watched it in college) and I had a good time with Thanksgiving as a simple steak and potatoes slasher flick. However, Ice Cream Man is none of these things. It's dialogue is offensive and edgy for the sake of being offensive and edgy, with no commentary or wit. The dull script is thinly held together by shock value and fake blood and the concept feels wasted. If you're looking to get your fix of killer zombie children, I'd recommend looking at 2014's Cooties or 2025's Weapons.
Ice Cream Man is playing in theaters on August 7th, 2026.
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