For over twenty years, Eli Roth has apparently been trying to get Ice Cream Man made. After watching it, that's easy to believe. This is the kind of movie that sounds too insane for a studio to greenlight: an idyllic small town, a mysterious ice cream vendor, and an army of children driven into a homicidal frenzy after enjoying a frozen treat. It's such a gleefully absurd premise that you almost have to respect Roth for finally dragging it across the finish line, even if the final product never completely justifies its feature-length runtime.
From the outset, Ice Cream Man nails its atmosphere. The color grade is aggressively bright and saturated, coating Bayleen Bay in an almost dreamlike summer glow that feels pulled from a childhood memory. That visual approach creates a weird sense of euphoric whimsy that constantly clashes with the carnage unfolding onscreen. The score operates in a similar space, balancing playful innocence with unsettling dread, and the combination gives the film a personality that is often stronger than its storytelling.
Roth perfectly captures the feeling of small-town America where everyone knows everyone, making the eruption of violence feel genuinely disruptive. Ari Millen's Ice Cream Man is a large reason why the movie works at all. The character doesn’t need dialogue because every stare, smile, and slow gesture immediately sets off alarm bells. He's genuinely creepy in the way classic childhood horror villains are creepy, feeling less like a modern slasher and more like something ripped straight from a particularly disturbing Goosebumps book. Even his truck is memorable, complete with an oversized ice cream cone mascot perched on top that reminded me of Mr. Tastee from The Adventures of Pete & Pete. Everything about the Ice Cream Man feels meticulously crafted to become a new horror icon, from his unsettling grin to his silent presence.
The young cast delivers mixed results. Charlie Zeltzer's Jared is an easy character to root for and serves as the film's emotional anchor, while the central group of kids mostly holds things together. Unfortunately, the supporting child performances vary wildly. Some mumble through their dialogue to the point of being difficult to understand, while others lack the naturalism necessary to make the material land. It never completely derails the movie, but it becomes increasingly noticeable as the cast expands.
Of course, nobody is buying a ticket to Ice Cream Man for understated performances. They're here for the kills, and Roth gives them plenty. In fact, he may give them too many.
The film's opening massacre is basically Dawn of the Dead if the mall were replaced by a school and the zombies were swapped out for killer children craving ice cream instead of brains. The scale of the bloodshed is undeniably impressive. Kids make blood angels in giant pools of gore, severed limbs become playground toys, and body parts are scattered around the screen with such frequency that the movie starts feeling like a practical effects showcase. Roth openly set out to make the most extreme film of his career, and there's no denying he achieved that goal.
For better or worse, Ice Cream Man frequently feels like Roth studying the Terrifier playbook. After the first batch of kills, you can't help but wonder if he set out to create the next Spirit Halloween merchandising phenomenon. Some of the deaths are completely outrageous, featuring enough blood, vomit, and gore to satisfy the most hardened splatter fans. There are a handful of genuinely creative kills that earn their shock value and stick in your memory. Others simply exist to be brutal. The difference becomes more obvious as the movie goes on. Once the novelty of watching children commit increasingly absurd acts of violence wears off, the film begins to feel repetitive.
That's ultimately the movie's biggest problem. Despite running only 86 minutes, you feel every minute of it. The central gimmick is amusing at first, but Roth returns to the same well so frequently that the impact diminishes. Imagine the scene from Weapons where the children attack Aunt Gladys. Now imagine an entire movie operating on that wavelength. For some audiences, that will sound like a recommendation. For others, it'll sound exhausting.
The comedy doesn't help much. Roth clearly wants the film to function as a horror-comedy, but very few jokes actually land. There are moments of absurdity that will get a reaction simply because of how ridiculous they are, including some kills so absurd they border on live-action cartoon violence, but the humor often feels forced rather than sharp.
What saves the film is its mythology. The deeper Roth digs into the lore surrounding the Ice Cream Man and his true motivations, the more interesting the movie becomes. Once the mystery starts taking shape, the narrative finally feels like it's building toward something rather than simply stringing together increasingly elaborate kills. The twist is fairly easy to predict, but it's effective nonetheless, and the final act delivers the kind of payoff the preceding hour often struggles to find.
After spending most of its runtime relying on excess, Ice Cream Man finally remembers to tell a story, and it sticks the landing in a way that elevates much of what came before. The mythology becomes compelling, the stakes feel real, and the finale delivers on the fairy-tale nightmare Roth has been teasing since the opening scene.
By the end, Ice Cream Man accomplishes something strange. It starts by making you want an ice cream cone and ends by ensuring you never want one again. It's messy, repetitive, immature, overly reliant on shock value, and probably would have worked better as a short film. It's also undeniably fun. It's not good enough to be a great horror movie, but it's just weird enough to be an entertaining one. And sometimes that's enough.
Jessie Hobson