We all scream.
An idyllic summer town descends into madness when an ice cream man serves kids sweet delights with horrifying results.
There are films that are so bad they’re good. Then there are films that are simply bad. And then, right at the bottom of the barrel, there are films that aren’t merely bad but deeply offensive. *Ice Cream Man* is what Eli Roth has scraped from beneath that barrel. Remember *Hostel*? One of Roth’s earliest films, it caused such a furore that it helped popularise an entire subgenre: “torture porn”. Yet, for all its reputation, Roth actually demonstrated considerable restraint. Some of its most frightening moments occur precisely when the camera turns away from the violence. His subsequent films—including *Hostel: Part II*, *The Green Inferno* and *Knock Knock*—suggested a steady erosion of that restraint and a descent into gleeful gore, obnoxious provocation and increasingly cringeworthy camp. There is plenty of all three in *Ice Cream Man*, and that is not necessarily a problem. Gore and camp can be enormously entertaining when handled with wit, imagination or technical skill. Here, however, everything is executed so artlessly that the film quickly becomes numbing. The effects look fake, the dialogue is juvenile, and the characters are little more than bodies waiting to be dissected. The performances are uniformly amateurish, from adults and children alike. Even allowing for the leeway usually afforded to young actors, it is painfully apparent that Roth has no idea how to direct them. Nothing is shocking because nothing feels consequential. It is simply boring. The film never finds a workable pace or tone. It lurches constantly between idiotic adults walking willingly towards their deaths, extreme close-ups of mutilation and tedious scenes in which the child protagonists recite dialogue so insipid that it sounds as though they wrote it themselves—although that is probably an insult to child writers. One character, temporarily paralysed, spends what feels like two solid minutes flopping from room to room like a landed fish. Whatever comic potential the sequence initially possesses is exhausted long before the scene ends. All of that would be disappointing enough. What makes *Ice Cream Man* genuinely enraging, however, is its relentless parade of offensive ideas masquerading as transgressive humour. A young woman is forced to promise that she will reconcile with her ex-boyfriend before he agrees to rescue her—and then she actually does. Paedophilia becomes the premise for a ludicrous comedy-horror that never comes close to establishing a coherent tone. A protagonist casually uses the ableist R-slur before another character turns autism into the punchline of the very next joke. In one grotesquely misjudged sequence, a Black person is chained to the back of a truck and dragged along the ground, invoking the imagery of racist violence and lynching, seemingly in pursuit of one more cheap shock. But the pièce de résistance—the final insult, the cherry on top, if you’ll pardon the pun—is the moment when a child actor, in a film released in 2026, is made to utter the following appalling line: > “I’m a 12-year-old girl. Of course I know how to throw up.” At that moment, it took everything I had not to get up and walk straight out of the cinema. Even by the low standards Roth has increasingly set for himself, *Ice Cream Man* is a disgrace. It is a film that mistakes misogyny for edginess, ableism for humour, and racist imagery for entertainment. Beneath all the gore and desperate provocation, there is no intelligence, no daring and no discernible humanity—just an ugly, witless film congratulating itself for having the nerve to be offensive.
I was hoping *Ice Cream Man* would be a fun piece of schlock, and there was some of that in the film. Sadly, *Ice Cream Man* was a one-joke movie that rammed it hard into the ground. Eli Roth's mean-spirited nature was present in the film, and it felt uncomfortable watching very young children commit violent acts, and a joke involving a 12-year-old girl's eating disorder. Also, fuck generative AI!\ \ [popculturemaniacs.com/ice-cream-man-2026-review/](https://popculturemaniacs.com/ice-cream-man-2026-review/)
Oh, now come on - who hasn't enjoyed delicious Mint Romney ice cream? Unfortunately, there is a side effect if you feed it to our children - it turns them into marauding murderers intent on killing every adult they see whether they be parent, guardian, granny or teacher. Luckily, though, "Jared" (Charlie Zelzter) is lactose intolerant and his sister "Lizzie" (Sarah Abbott) won't let him have any. Phew! That leaves him, "Mia" (Kiori Mirza Waldman) and "Tommy" (Shiloh O'Reilly) as the only kids in the town not determined on a rampage of gory slaughter. What's causing all of this? Well they (and we) quickly deduce that it must have something to do with the creepy ice cream man (Ari Millen) whose van appears at all hours of the day and night to top up their dose of coned-delights and so fuel their antics - even the hunky fireman isn't safe! After about ten minutes, this descended into a most puerile and unsophisticated dose of CGI-driven nonsense that did, at least, invoke a degree of unanimity from the dozen or so of us in the cinema who were all looking at each other wondering how this ever got off the drawing board. It's repetitious; there's no jeopardy nor is there even the vaguest attempt to craft any characters that we might care less about as their killing spree finds as many ways of carving someone up and then sets it all to music. It's as if Messrs. Belson and Roth just typed the word kill into a digital thesaurus and then let their computers run riot with the results. To be fair to Zeltzer, he tries to inject a little stoic humanity in to the proceedings - even if his some of his riper dialogue uses language that people his own age wouldn't be able to sit on the other side of the screen and actually watch; but the remainder of the cast just look like they've been just been told to go make some mess for the cameras. Even Hammer or John Carpenter at their abject worst managed to keep us interested in what was happening to some extent, but this really hasn't anything to redeem it at all - except perhaps the end credits. It smacks of something that someone might think has legs for another scoop, but I really hope those with the cash take a stance against such auto-trash and invest in cinema that actually requires people to screw up rather than just our machines.
I don't understand what movie others were watching on social media. This film ROCKED!!!! From what I was hearing, there were 4 things that people have been complaining about which I DO NOT AGREE WITH and honestly I think most of them is just people being WAY to sensitive and looking for things to be offended about: 1) The dinner table comment. Basically the sister says she is going to a water park and brother asks if he can go. The sister say why so you can look at girls in bikinis and the dad chimes in with something like "I wanna go too". People are complaining that the comment was pedish which I think is taking it WAY out of context. Anyone with a quick whit would have said that comeback. It was just a dad teasing his daughter after the brother already did. I think people reading into it have some self reflection to do. 2) Tommy (the black kid) wearing a t-shirt that says "Problem" on it. Again, people just taking something WAY out of context in order to drum up the whole "this movie is racist" card. The kid was the BEST part of the movie. In not one seen was any gangster sterotype used. He has some of the best lines in the movie and was the only one with the foresight to get tools to dig up the grave. 3) The use of generative AI Eli Roth has stated that generative AI was used in some scenes and you can defiantly tell that it was. However, to give credit, it was only used in scenes where you would have used CGI and didn't take away from the movie. Also, NONE of the gore was CGI. All of the gore is practical effects! For instance in the over head shot of the ice cream truck driving through town. That would have been an overhead drone shot that you have seen in 10,000 other movies anyway. When the sister looks out at the town and the houses and cars are on fire. It looked VERY Sci-Fi channel effects so you can tell it was AI generated. Again, nothing taking away from the move and honestly, they could have removed that scene. The biggest one is where the horde of kids jump down from the monkey bars to chase the boyfriend. I see why they used it. Doing a shot like that would have involved a bunch of stunt people for safety concerns so I think any right minded studio would have done that scene with CGI anyways, but it did look cheesy. He could have just removed the jumping down scene and left the cut of all the kids running after the boyfriend 4) Not telling the back story of the Ice Cream Man Who was smoking what when then saw the movie. The priest goes into the ENTIRE back story of the Ice Cream Man, who he was and why he is doing this. Its right there laid out for you. You're going to know everything about the dude. ------------------ All and all I will say again that this movie ROCKED!!! Not once was the movie slow or boring. I never once looked at my watch or waiting for the pacing of the movie to pick. The movie get going within 15 minutes and just doesn't stop. All the gore is awesome and it just keeps coming. Also it's all done with practical effects so it really ups the gross factor. Many times you could hear everyone in the theater getting grossed out and cheering. You're going to have a great time with this film if you switch off you sensitivity, don't go looking for something to offend you and just have fun. This really was a great horror, splatter fest to go in the theater with others. I hope you all go and see it.
