Carl Roberts 
“Blood, guts, violence by the bucketload, held together by the thinnest of plots, Ice Cream Man isn’t one of Eli Roth’s best works.”
Look, everyone knows I love a good horror film. It doesn’t need to be bloody, gory, or horrendously violent. All I ask is for a half-decent script, some great scares, and something resembling a plot. Eli Roth’s Ice Cream Man contains none of these. However, what it does contain is enough violence, gore, blood, and eye-rollingly bad humor. This will send horror fans home unsatisfied. At the same time, queasy audience members will be reaching for the sick buckets. Ok, so I lied slightly. There was one death that did give me a chuckle, but that’s about it. For the most part, I watched with amazement at how something like this managed to be made. It also got past the censors. Moreover, I was surprised by how little real horror it contained. Even a last-minute plot twist, which we should have seen coming, can save it from the bargain bin.
THE PREMISE
An idyllic summer town descends into madness when an ice cream man serves kids sweet delights with horrifying results…As the frozen treats unleash an insatiable hunger in the children who eat them. With each sweet scoop, once-innocent kids transform into gruesome butchers with their sights set on adults.
THOUGHTS
If you’re looking for outrageously inappropriate and imaginative kills, you’ll find them here. But then again, you’ll find almost all the same kills in the Terrifier franchise. This includes one that has been ripped off from Terrifier 3. The difference is, Terrifier 3 did it so much better. You can see the deaths coming from a mile away. To be honest with you, you’ve seen a great majority of them in the red-band trailer already. While some visual moments featuring removed body parts may evoke a chuckle, they don’t improve the overall quality of what’s presented here.
After dispatching virtually all the adults in town, the kids try to force the ice cream down the throats of those youngsters who have steered clear of it so far. This now forms the crux of the film. However, it gets tiresome quickly. Ok, so seeing murderous children turn into virtual zombies is slightly spooky. Suddenly, this is abandoned in favor of the same children happily playing with dismembered bodies, decapitated heads, and disembowled innards. It doesn’t make sense. Why, one minute, the kids are like The Walking Dead, and the next, they are running happily around the school yard like it’s break time.
ARI MILLEN
Ari Millen is the Ice Cream Man the title alludes to. And here is yet another problem. The actor is in the film for around twenty minutes. The film is called Ice Cream Man, but it should have been named Over-Sugared Children In Shock Murderous Rampage! It’s a shame to see a talented actor like Ari Millen, who received praise for his role as Mark Rollins in Orphan Black, reduced to wandering around with a smile and no dialogue. He’s meant to be a scary, evil figure, but he fails to make an impact. Millen gets short-changed. He fades into the background while the children take center stage in the story.
Thankfully, the actor has a ball with what little he has to work with. His infectious smile, his happiness at what he’s doing, his childlike innocence at times, and some great acting manage to make him stand out, despite the script he has been given. I will say that Millen’s Ice Cream Man is almost a perfect horror movie villain. He is someone we wouldn’t expect to hurt us, someone we put our trust in, and who is the quiet loner, trying to make kids happy. Almost like an evil Willy Wonka. Of course, we know he’s got a horrifying hidden agenda, but even this is ripped from A Nightmare On Elm Street in a way. The actor, and we, as the audience, deserve better.
VERDICT
Blood, guts, violence by the bucketload, held together by the thinnest of plots, Ice Cream Man isn’t one of Eli Roth’s best works. This is nowhere near the same ballpark as his two Hostel movies, Cabin Fever, or even Thanksgiving (all of which I personally loved), making this join the realms of his Death Wish remake and Borderlands. While the film doesn’t quite sink to those depths, it only just manages to rise above them. Roth seems to have taken ideas from other, more successful movies that worked, and combined them into a script that is thinner than the thinnest gruel. Blood, guts, and violence will only get you so far; you also need some semblance of a plot to make it succeed.
By the time we reach the end credits, we feel thankful that it’s over. After having our senses attacked for close to ninety minutes, and with some really poor and unnecessary AI added into the mix, we walk from the theater debating the film’s lack of any real substance. We remember the film for all the wrong reasons instead of being chilled and scared after seeing the film. Bargain basement mediocrity awaits. The old adage of I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream, couldn’t be further from the truth. Oh, we will scream, alright, to be let out of this limp and uninspired gore flick early.
Ice Cream Man will be in cinemas from Friday, courtesy of Studiocanal, The Horror Section, and MCT Studios.
Introducing Carl! As the News Editor at Future of the Force, Carl has been an invaluable member of our team since early 2016. His expertise and dedication have made him an integral part of our editorial staff. Beyond his professional role, Carl is a fervent supporter of Liverpool F.C. and an avid follower of pop culture. He has a deep passion for Halloween, Friday the 13th, and the iconic movie franchises Star Wars and Star Trek.
He can be found either at his neighborhood cinema, enjoying the latest releases on the big screen, or at home streaming the newest blockbuster movies.
