Eli Roth’s “Ice Cream Man” is concerned with getting to the kill count. The characters and set-up are only present to serve that one purpose. Once the horror film reaches the top of the rollercoaster, it becomes less of a gory thrill ride and more of a ride that suffers malfunction after malfunction. The bodies that get sliced, diced, and burned (among other things) are just simply that — collateral damage to the window dressing of themes and revelations done better in films like “Nightmare on Elm Street” and “Weapons.”
It’s not that slashers need to be in tune with a weighty plot to be effective. Sometimes, all you need is a cast of unsuspecting teenagers with a supernatural villain on a quest for ruthless vengeance. But there is at least an inkling of the investigation into how we got there and lore to justify the parade of body parts—someone to at least empathize with. “Ice Cream Man” is not concerned with any of that. Rather, plotting runs counter to the film’s bloody ethos.
Charlie Storey as “Piper” in the horror film, ICE CREAM MAN, from The Horror Section. Photo
credit The Horror Section 2026
We are taken to idyllic Bayleen Bay, where it’s sunny, kids are playing gleefully outside, and everything is grand. It’s prime real estate for a nefarious ice cream man (Ari Millen) to come and set up shop. After a little league baseball game, nobody takes a second look at such treat names like “Serpent Swirl” and “The Stinger.” However, the conveniently lactose-intolerant Jared (Charlie Zeltzer) notices something is off. Maybe it’s something about the ice cream man’s creepy smile or the menacing logo on the top of his truck. But there’s something!
Before the mayhem starts, “Ice Cream Man” places characters in their roles relatively quickly. Jared has an older sister named Lizzie (Sarah Abbott) who cares only about whether she can partake in cut day and often bats off her aloof ex-boyfriend, Chris (Dylan Hawco). He has a best friend named Elliot (Luke Dietz), a crush on an older classmate named Mia (Kiori Mirza Waldman), and an annoying bully named Sebastian (Sonam Kalsang).
As one can deduce, something is wrong with the ice cream the kids are eating. They show up to school like zombies, with their faces caked in treats. One night, that familiar ice cream man jingle starts to play throughout the neighborhood. From there, it’s absolute mayhem where these sugar-induced children strive to kill every single adult they see. At first, these sequences are contained within houses, so the deaths are with everyday items. Garbage disposals, baseball bats, and mouse traps, to name a few. Roth’s film tries for a dark comedic element, and this is the space and time where it feels natural. Otherwise, there are some jokes, especially one flippantly referencing eating disorders, that are placed just for shock value slock. From there, the film looks for the most violent ways to dismember and maim people, hoping the allure of schoolchildren doing it doesn’t wear off long enough for the audience to look around.
The kids clearly aren’t alright, and Roth is no stranger to a gory spectacle given the first two “Hostel” films, 2002’s “Cabin Fever,” and 2013’s “The Green Inferno.” There are some practical elements staged into the deaths that look good the first couple of times you see them. But even that gets repetitive relatively quickly (and that’s not to mention the use of generative AI elements Roth has confirmed). Everything veers into survivors’ need to find a way out; we need to find a way to destroy the evil territory. What awaits is a quick backstory referencing a classic horror icon’s origin and a twist ending you can infer from the very beginning.
Maybe the citizens of Bayleen Bay should have been wary of taking frozen popsicles and ice cream cones from a stranger who doesn’t ask for money in return. If they had asked that question at the beginning, perhaps it would have given the film a bit of breathing room to build something for the audience to chew on. Instead, “Ice Cream Man” fails to invoke the spirit of vintage, creep-induced slasher films and melts before giving any sugary satisfaction.
