Movies
[Review] ‘The Ice Cream Truck’ is More Drama Than Slasher
Living in the suburbs was once considered the idyllic culmination of the American way of life, but after films like Halloween, Poltergeist and Nightmare on Elm Street, we’ve grown accustomed to horrific events taking place in what should be the dreamiest neighborhoods of the United States. Megan Freels Johnston’s new film, The Ice Cream Truck, is a peculiar throwback to these suburbanite thrillers.
The Ice Cream Truck stars Deanna Russo as Mary, a young writer moving back to her hometown as she waits for her husband and son to join her in the suburbs. While dealing with local housewives and drug-dealing teenagers is hard enough for the lonely mother, there’s also a serial killing ice cream vendor prowling the streets in his old-fashioned Truck, and it looks like Mary might be on his list.
While the setting isn’t particularly original for a horror film (though I’m not sure if there are that many unexplored venues left for scary movies in 2017), Johnston’s well-paced storytelling and Russo’s charisma make this an extremely compelling experience, even if it doesn’t exactly hit all the right notes. To be honest, I was much more enveloped in Mary’s dilemma as a mother that just didn’t fit in than the bow-tie-wearing murderer.
The charming main character and believable secondary cast are what make The Ice Cream Truck stand out from conventional horror movies, as the kills bow to the main plot rather than the other way around. Nevertheless, the film is lacking in the frights department, as the killer’s subplot feels disconnected from the rest of the story. At times, it feels like a slasher movie randomly crashed into an introspective drama, and the filmmakers just went with it.
This doesn’t necessarily ruin the film, but it would have been nice to mesh these concepts together more elegantly, with the killer playing a bigger part in Mary’s dramatic journey instead of just murdering characters unrelated to the main story. That being said, it was nice to see him ominously show up in various scenes, always lurking in the background, even if he didn’t have all that much to do.
Additionally, the movie also boasts an entertaining John-Carpenter-esque synth score, though it does feel a bit out of place considering the film’s overall tone. It works during chase sequences and certain dramatic scenes, but other times it just gets in the way. The titular truck’s ice cream jingle was certainly spooky with its false sense of child-like innocence, though.
Ultimately, The Ice Cream Truck makes up for most of its shortcomings with a charming protagonist and a witty script, even if some elements feel uneven. Johnston’s John Carpenter influence might not always mesh with the story at hand, but at the very least it makes things interesting. It might not be the ice-cream vending serial killer splatterfest that you might have hoped for, but the movie is definitely worth a watch.
The Ice Cream Truck is available now on VOD!
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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