As a massive fan of Eli Roth’s genre films from day one, each time he comes out with a new feature, I am fully locked in. 2023’s Thanksgiving found Roth receiving the best critical reviews of his entire career with a sharply-written slasher flick decades in the making. His newest flick, Ice Cream Man, is the first Roth hatched himself for his speciality label, The Horror Section, and finds the ever-evolving creative returning to his roots a bit. This schlocky, 80s-style trashterpiece is the kind of movie that studios simply do not make anymore. It also has somewhat limited appeal right out of the gate: the tin advertised a zany killer kid movie, and that’s exactly what we get. Freshly infused with Eli Roth’s signature brand of twisted humor, Ice Cream Man unleashes a hellish gaggle of kids on an unsuspecting small town—with deliciously ridiculous results.
As summer vacation begins in Bayleen Bay, local kids eagerly gather around a colorful ice cream truck, unaware that its smiley vendor hides sinister intentions. Roth plays up the ominous nature of his titular character by leaning into the everyman look of Canadian actor Ari Millen. Perpetually-bullied Jared (Charlie Zeltzer) knows there’s something off about this ice cream man, but not enough to stop the inevitable from playing out. After hearing the truck’s haunting jingle in the middle of the night, nearly every child in town snaps under its influence. Deep into the night, they evolve into gleeful killers who brutally turn on any adult who may cross their path. A small group of unaffected kids—including Jared, his older sister Liz, notorious class-skipper Tommy, and quiet outsider Mia—must uncover the horrifying truth behind the Ice Cream Man before Bayleen Bay melts into oblivion.
The pleasantly simplistic storyline does get bogged down slightly in a comical exposition dump about halfway in, one tailor-made to push the trajectory of the film towards its conclusion. But even there, Roth and co-writer Noah Belson seem fully in on the joke. Their script revels in the ridiculous, saving a massive chunk of screentime for a chaotic, over-the-top explosion of gore set at the children’s middle school. The setup has absurdity baked right in, and Roth reverts to his Cabin Fever roots in the way the twisted humor mingles with cartoonish violence. This loving devotion to the macabre delights seems to side-step critical analysis, knowingly embracing elements that audience will obviously love rather than crafting some deep narrative. 1995’s cult classic Ice Cream Man has no connection to this one, but the inevitable comparisons may still provide room for an utterly nonsensical double feature in the near future. It bears a few similarities to 2014’s tongue-in-cheek Cooties as well, which saw a virus infecting kids that then turn ravenous.
Transforming children into zombified, sprinkle-and-icing smeared lunatics gives Ice Cream Man a leg up on other horror that has emerged this year. There’s always room for entertainment that asks you to just turn off your brain (or scoop it out!) for an hour and a half to enjoy the ride. The excessive brutality will certainly not be for everyone, but it plays more comedy/horror than straight up horror around every decimated corpse and sawed off head. Many characters exist only as caricatures, and Zeltzer’s Jared is barely whip-smart enough to register as a compelling final boy archetype. Roth’s filmmaking style always finds ways to elevate the material. His shots linger on a freaky smiling ice cream cone adorned atop the truck, and even across the Ice Cream Man himself as he evolves into a type of twisted pied piper. A late-game beheading also results in a shockingly perfect switch-up that feels rather inspired.
Ultimately, enjoyment of Ice Cream Man will probably come down to taste. Roth’s movie does not concern itself with elevated horror, meta slasher whodunnits, or subversive cerebral thrills. The practical effects have a demented story built around them instead, perhaps birthing a horror icon for the next generation. At the very least, Ice Cream Man acts as a sugary-sweet appetizer while we wait for Thanksgiving 2. Hopefully the aftertaste will prove enough to satiate the bloodlust of horror fans anxious to see what Eli Roth has left thawing from his archives on standby.
Scoop out Eli Roth’s newest flavor of nastiness with Ice Cream Man, exclusively in theaters on Friday, August 7th.
