Ice Cream Man Review

 

Eli Roth is back with a brand new horror film. Was it any fun or was it a dud?

Ice Cream Man is a horror movie that was produced by The Horror Section and MCT Studios with Iconic Events Releasing being in charge of distribution. Despite the title it shares no relation to the 1995 film or the Image comic book series. Eli Roth directed along with writing the screenplay with Nolan Belson.

The story is, Bayleen Bay is ordinary quiet town and Jared thinks he can expect a typical summer. But one day a mysterious and very unsettling ice cream drives into town and gives almost all of the Bayleen child ice cream. The next day all of the kids are now bloodthirsty maniacs who are killing every adult they see. Now Jared along with some other kids want to find a way to stop this blood soaked madness.

Initial Reaction

I decided to see this because it looked like it was gonna be a fun horror movie. I know "elevated horror" (God I can't tell you how much I've grown to hate that) is the trend now. But sometimes you just want a popcorn flick. Something you can watch and just have fun with.

Cons

If there was one truly negative thing I can think of with this movie it's the use of AI. Now I wouldn't have a problem with it if it was use as a proof of concept behind the scenes and they use the real deal later without the use of AI. Because when you do that that is you using AI as a tool, as something it's meant to be. But using it in the finished product? Sorry Eli, but I gotta dock some points off. I'm thankful you gave us Thanksgiving after waiting for so many years, but I still gotta dock some points.

Middle Ground

One grey area is the characters. Now I wasn't expecting anything deep when going into a movie called Ice Cream Man, but when making these types of over the top shlock films make sure you characters are at least memorable. Sadly I'm not gonna remember a lot of these characters because they're very generic. Then there's the humor. Sometimes jokes are okay, sometimes they're truly funny like this one gag with a guy on a segway, that one was hilarious. But other times the joke didn't work at all. So yeah the quality of the dark humor is all over the place.

Pros

If there's one praise I'll give it's Ari Millen performance as The Ice Cream Man. He doesn't have one single bit of dialogue and yet he was still very chilling and off putting. There was also the gore effects and the kills themselves. Very good use of practical work and some very twisted creativity. The last thing I'll write about is the pacing. This movie doesn't over stay its welcome. The one hour and twenty-seven minutes runtime was used efficiently and not one moment is wasted on padding or something else that would be uninteresting.

Ice Cream Man is a movie that clearly knows it's a B-movie with a better budget and that made it fun. Although yet again, I wished they hadn't used AI in the official release. Like I said previously AI should've been used as a tool and nothing else.

My final rating is, Okay.

That'll about wrap things up. Come back on Monday, Aug 10th, for a brand new Fan Film Mondays. For that one I'll be reviewing a Terminator fan film. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.