Back in August I reviewed a movie also titled Ice Cream Man. However that movie had no relation to this one, but since it's the Halloween season I thought it'd be fun to review the 1995 cult film.
Ice Cream Man is a direct-to-video black comedy slasher movie that was produced by Doublesteen Productions & David M. Goldstein Productions with A-Pix Entertainment and Ardustry Home Entertainment acting as the distributors. Sven Davison and David Dobkin wrote the story with Paul Norman (under the pseudonym Norman Apstein) directing.
The story is, a man named Gregory Tudor has been released from a mental institution and is working as a an ice cream in a loving tribute to the deceased ice cream man that brought him so many happy days. But Gregory isn't an innocent ice cream but an insane murderous lunatic who gives people ice cream not knowing he puts bugs and human body parts in the beloved dessert. Now a group of friends must find a way to put the stop to the derange psychopath.
- Negatives
For me the one truly negative thing is the kills. When making a slasher movie you want the kills to be remembered as awesome, but this movie doesn't have awesome kills. I only remember because of how odd they're staged. Some are shortened, some happen off screen, or they cutaway. So you don't feel the impact when someone dies because you're not getting the full experience.
- Mix
One of the oddest aspects of the movie is the tone. The movie always sits at such a bizarre position. One moment it's a rated R horror flick, then it's a dark comedy, and then it has this kid adventure vibe. So no matter what the movie is giving you a tonal whiplash left and right. Now usually I would hate it when a movie does that but somehow the filmmakers made it this experience you can't turn away from.
Then there's how this movie looks. This is 100% a cheap movie. But when it's not being cheap there's just some odd editing choices. The biggest example being the movie will actually fade to black almost like a commercial break is gonna happen. I saw this movie on SyFy (back when it was properly spelled Sci-Fi) as a kid and even as a kid I thought this was a bizarre thing for a movie to do.
- Positives
There's only one truly good thing about this movie and that's Clint Howard. He was fully committed to the role of Gregory. So much so that in order to get Gregory's raspy voice he would scream and yell as loud as he could on the drive to filming just so his voice would get that hoarseness to it. But even outside the voice Howard balances the menace and absurd comedy. He was able to bring out Gregory's disturbing belief that his grotesque ice cream is a gift. So if there's any reason to watch this, watch it for Clint Howard.
Ice Cream Man isn't a very good movie. It's not a masterpiece yet at the same time it's not pure trash either. This movie is its own flawed scoop of something else.
My final rating is, Okay.
That's all for now. Come back on Oct 5th, for my review of the show Lanterns. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.
