Ice Cream Man

Ice Cream Man
Starring Ari Millen, Charlie Zeltzer, Shiloh O'Reilly, Kiori Mirza Waldman
Directed by Eli Roth

Everyone knows about the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin: a piper who was hired by a town to lead all the rats away returns when he's refused payment and uses his instrument to lure all the children out of the town. It's existed since the Middle Ages and serves as a cautionary tale about vengeance. Horror auteur Eli Roth, fresh off his successful "Thanksgiving," delivers his own modern-day telling of the story, but this time it's an ice cream man who arrives in town after being wronged not to lure the children away, but turn them into psychotic killers. While this is on-bar for Roth, the film itself is surprisingly boring, long, and filled with terrible performances from an extremely thinly written script - not to mention the egregious use of AI.

Jared (Charlie Zeltzer) is a kid who's constantly picked on and has very few friends, and after a baseball game he witnesses the other children enjoying ice cream delivered by the Ice Cream Man (Ari Millen) - but being lactose intolerant, he can't have any himself. This saves him as that night, while the ice cream truck music plays, all the kids who ate the ice cream become mindless zombies set out to kill the adults in the town in horrifying ways. Only Jared, his crush Mia (Kiori Mirza Waldman), another kid Tommy (Shiloh O'Reilly) and Jared's teenage sister Lizzie (Sarah Abbott) can save the town by finding out the dark history of the Ice Cream Man and put his carnage to an end - or become one of them.

Essentially, "Ice Cream Man" is "Terrifier" and "Weapons" mixed into a blender, with the decent chunks thrown in the trash, leaving behind just the milky leftovers. My eyes hurt from rolling them so much during this splatterfest, which is something I wasn't expecting - as a fan of horror, and especially gory horror, I was hoping to be entertained. Instead, it was a labor to struggle through it, and while the beginning kills were enjoyable, when they're repeated throughout the film it looses its excitement.

Behind it all is a simple concept with a mind-boggling confusing finale. The Ice Cream Man was wronged by the town decades earlier and returns to get his revenge, but when Jared and his friends find out through clunky exposition how to stop him, it becomes a convoluted mess. The steps they have to go to stop him doesn't make sense which, seeing the finale, is probably on purpose but still nonetheless meaningless. That's actually a good word for this film: meaningless. There's nothing of note in this movie that makes it memorable, and even the over-the-top kills were met with groans instead of gasps (apart from one particular kill which was actually quite enjoyable, involving someone on a motorized scooter). 

The performances all around are abysmal, even for children. Charlie Zeltzer has no urgency in his performance, and his buddies Shiloh O'Reilly and Kiori Mirza Waldman are equally vapid - but that could be due to the underwhelming script that includes moments of shock value for the sake of shock. When Mia throws up ice cream fed to her, Tommy asks how she's able to do it, and she replies "I'm a twelve year old girl, of course I know how to throw up." That's supposed to be comedic, but comes across as incredibly insensitive and purposefully designed to make people angry. Then there's the use of AI during the video scenes that just further adds to the frustration of the movie.

Basically, the only reason to see "Ice Cream Man" is the kills, but if you want to see them done right, watch a "Terrifier" film instead.

The Score: D