“Ice Cream Man” wants to be violent horror and a joke about violent horror at the same time. It picks neither, and 86 minutes later there is nothing left to hold on to.
Eli Roth directs the film, with a script he wrote alongside Noah Belson. The idea is simple: a quiet summer town gets a visit from an ice cream man, played by Ari Millen, who hands out sweet treats that end badly for the children who take them. Those children include Jared (Charlie Zeltzer), Benji (Kole Parks), Tommy, Mia (Kiori Mirza Waldman) and Lizzie (Sarah Abbott). The premise promises trouble. What arrives instead is a plain, dull film with little to offer.
A Formula That Never Delivers
An ice cream man turning a small town into ruin is a good idea on paper. Roth has built a career on that kind of material, treating horror with a joke aimed at the audience. Here the joke never stops long enough to let anything land. Every set piece arrives with a knowing look, as if daring you to take it seriously so the film can turn around and insist it was never trying.
That is the core problem. A film this thin needs either real fear or full effort behind the joke. It has neither. The kills land without dread, the comedy lands without wit, and the tone keeps working against itself until nothing sticks.
Children Left With Little To Do
Millen plays the title character as pure cartoon, which could work, but there is no real threat behind the cartoon. Zeltzer, Parks, Waldman and Abbott are placed into a script that never gives them a reason to matter. Nobody here gives a bad performance so much as a wasted one. The film does not build dread around these children; it just marches them toward the next kill.
What The Reviews Say
The reaction to this film has been harsh, and it is deserved. Variety said the film’s own knowledge of how silly it is was meant to work in its favor, but called Roth’s joking attitude an excuse rather than a strength. That judgment describes the whole picture. Knowing you are silly is not a substitute for skill, and “Ice Cream Man” rests on its own knowing look instead of building anything beneath it.
One critic said the film was ugly, unpleasant, and left a bad taste in the mouth, with nothing beneath it worth praising. IGN’s Chase Hutchinson said the film felt cheap rather than clever, heavy rather than amusing, and empty by the end. All of these judgments agree. This is not a film that aims high and misses. It aims low and still misses.
The Numbers
The box office backs up what is on screen. A $5.5 million budget should be enough for a horror comedy with a known director attached. Instead the film opened to just $1-2 million in the United States across roughly 1,700 to 1,761 cinemas, one of the weakest openings of Roth’s career measured against how many screens carried it, and has earned only about $5.9 to $6 million in total. Audiences are not showing up, and the ones who do are not enjoying it: an audience score of 4.6 out of 10 from 52 votes shows this is not a case of critics missing something good. There is nothing good to miss.
By the numbers:
– Director: Eli Roth
– Written by: Eli Roth, Noah Belson
– Runs 86 minutes
– Metacritic: 34/100
– Critic score: 27%
– Audience score: 4.6/10 from 52 votes
– Budget: $5.5 million
– Total earnings: about $5.9 to $6 million
– U.S. opening: $1-2 million across roughly 1,700-1,761 cinemas
There is a version of “Ice Cream Man” that goes all the way silly and earns its horror, and there is a version that plays it straight and builds real dread. Roth and Belson deliver neither. What remains is a film that knows exactly how ridiculous it is and thinks that alone is enough. It is not.
This film earns a score of 34 out of 100.
