It’s naturally unnerving whenever something that’s supposed to be innocent and vulnerable becomes a furious force of nature. It’s why there is no shortage of “kidpocalypse” horror movies where killer kids are the central threat.
Between Children of the Corn, Village of the Damned, Them, and most recently, Weapons, there’s a great deal of variety when it comes to creepy children fare. It’s a fun, frightening premise when it’s done properly and in the right hands, which is why Eli Roth is the right fit for this sort of exploitation horror. Roth has the proper background and genre passion to make this type of adolescent evil extravaganza excel, while also breathing fresh life into it at the same time. Ice Cream Man is a killer kid horror film that helps the subgenre mature into something more layered.
The setup is incredibly simple: a mysterious ice cream man’s signature product turns the youth of Bayleen Bay into murderous minions. However, Ice Cream Man also provides a deeper look into the perversion of safety and what happens when Capra-esque institutions of purity become the very things that taint innocence. It’s a blood-soaked epic with zero filter that still manages to reflect upon coming-of-age catharsis, the destruction of the American family, and youth’s destiny to swallow their previous generation whole. It’s also, without question, the most gruesome film of Eli Roth’s career and easily the summer’s most brutal horror movie. Forget lactose intolerant. Ice Cream Man is elegance and sophistication intolerant.
Ice Cream Man, right from the start, preaches this gloomy idea of what happens when innocence and old-fashioned values are horrifically perverted once a toxic force of nature infects everything. It begins with an Amblin outlook on life and is knee-deep in splattercore by the time the end credits roll. There’s a wry tone that’s often dropping in disdain for zoomers and today’s current youth, which helps give the ensuing chaos a little extra bite.
Regarding said chaos, it takes Ice Cream Man a little too long to get moving. The first 15 minutes are a bit of a slog and had me worried. However, once Ice Cream Man goes wild, it’s off to the races and the rest of the movie is a propulsive burst of non-stop carnage.
In many ways, Roth turns Ice Cream Man into a macabre, modern reimagining of the Pied Piper parable. There’s even an alluring sing-song quality to Ice Cream Man’s murderous manipulation that’s very Silver Shamrock-coded from Halloween III: Season of the Witch.
Ice Cream Man features a threadbare plot, but honestly, story is largely irrelevant in a film like this, and it’s really just a conduit to kickstart the kills. What follows is basically a more gratuitous grindhouse version of Weapons, only the kids are turned into murderous monsters through tainted ice cream instead of some cryptic witch magic. The ice cream truck’s innocent jingle works as the trigger that awakens these sleeper agents and sets them loose.
Amidst this mayhem, a handful of unaffected kids come together, like a middle school Breakfast Club, as they attempt to survive — and solve — these troubling events. Some of Ice Cream Man’s child actors initially leave a little to be desired. They quickly find a rhythm and fall into naturalistic performances that ring true. None of this cast may emerge as one of horror’s next rising stars, but they get the job done and keep the film moving along. Ice Cream Man taps into the same heightened, B-movie energy that’s explored in Thanksgiving, which helps make these generic performances feel a little less awkward.
Ice Cream Man’s kids become much more compelling once they’re “activated” and go mad, rather than the restrained work they’re doing earlier. Ari Millen provides a distinctly creepy performance as the titular Ice Cream Man without saying a single word. The film makes the simple but inspired decision to have its children still be capable of conversations and seemingly act normal so that they can trick their parents into a false sense of security before they strike. They’re not always in murder mode, which is a much more interesting angle than these kids just being uncontrollable “rage zombies.”
Credit where it’s due, Ice Cream Man is a triumph in terms of its gore and practical effects. Those who are just looking for explicit and exaggerated kills in the same vein as Terrifier won’t be disappointed. There’s a lot to appreciate here even if many of the more muted moments fall flat. These exaggerated executions are more than enough to make Ice Cream Man a worthy standout in Roth’s filmography and one of the summer’s more satisfying horror films.
Eli Roth has described Ice Cream Man as his most insane and goriest film to date, and the film actually follows through on this promise and manages to top the vicious heights of The Green Inferno and Hostel II. There are 100 murderous, blood-soaked kids who are on the loose here and some exceptionally gory setpieces, including kids playing jump rope and Cat’s Cradle with intestines, plus a litany of incredibly creative kills that utilize school-based items in thoroughly deranged ways.
Ice Cream Man just moves from one darkly hilarious and vicious setpiece to the next, with each one better than the last. This also isn’t a situation where it’s just kids that attack and wreak havoc on the adults. There’s plenty of child murder going on here. Ice Cream Man doesn’t hold back when it comes to a hefty body count of young boys and girls. There’s a simple but effective backstory for the ice cream man and his corresponding chaos that turns him into a bit of a Freddy Krueger-esque totem of vengeance. To this point, Ice Cream Man builds to a surprising and ambitious final act that seems tailor-made for a sequel and extends this gruesome gonzo massacre into a full-on franchise.
Ice Cream Man is one of the summer’s bloodiest surprises. What it lacks in story, it more than delivers in gore, and Eli Roth fans won’t be let down. It’s a love letter to the ultra-violent B-movies of the past that delivers blood, guts, and grief with a cherry on top.
Ice Cream Man is in theaters on August 7.
