I have a rule when I watch a new film of dubious quality. If I’m still watching it by the fifteen minute mark, I finish the film. The sentiment is that if the film held my attention for fifteen minutes, there must be something worthwhile about the film.
Well, last night, at the 10 PM showing of Eli Roth’s Ice Cream Man (2026), I questioned that rule for the first time (and the existential “What am I doing with my life?”).
This is a truly abysmal film. And not just because of his judicial use of AI, which is, to be kind, disheartening. I saw Thanksgiving (2023) in theaters and really enjoyed it. I’m not the biggest Eli Roth fan, I thought Cabin Fever was fun when I was a thirteen-year-old, and Hostel was interesting only if it was the same tired tropes played out on men for a change (his sequel would drop that idea and find women in trouble again). But nevertheless, I was looking forward to Ice Cream Man because I thought his last film was so fun.
I have only myself to blame.
Dear reader, do not go see this film. It’s interminable, despite its hour twenty-six runtime. It honestly felt closer to two hours than one.
THE FILM
We open on an idyllic suburban town during the last inning of a baseball game, and our intrepid hero, Jared (Charlie Zeltzer), misses the game-saving fly ball. After some good-natured bullying, the kids all get some ice cream from the titular Ice Cream Man (Ari Millen). Everyone except Jared, who’s lactose intolerant.
Mini Diatribe
I’m lactose intolerant. Thank you, that is brave. I’ve been lactose intolerant for over a decade and you know what I’ve never denied myself?
Dairy.
I just had Mac & cheese last night. This morning I had cheese in my omelette. Just for the hell of it, I’m gonna have some gelato tonight. With or without Lact-Aid, I’m eating dairy.
Back to the Film
Jared goes home and has dinner with his parents (Eli Roth and Karen Cliché) and sister, Lizzie (Sarah Abbott). Here we learn, so incredibly clunky, that both his parents, as well as his grandparents, were all lawyers (Will this come back later in the film? Am I lactose intolerant?).
Later that night, the children that ate the ice cream all wake up and kill their parents in grotesque fashion, hacksaw, dental tools, and garbage disposals are the weapons. It’s shocking at first, but as the film goes on, the kills lose their sting.
The next day, Jared finds that all of the students at his school are zombified, with their faces covered in sprinkles. Then, for the remainder of the film, they gruesomely kill teachers and cops with glee while Jared and co try to stop the evil Ice Cream Man.
MY THOUGHTS
Most of the film is set ups and close ups of gruesome kills; and it’s unimaginably boring because of it. One kill runs into another into another ad infinitum. A good horror film, splatter or otherwise, gains marks for its inventive kills. That’s where an editor comes in handy. In a film like this, you need two to three good and memorable kills; think the sleeping bag kill in Friday the 13th: The New Blood or the bedroom scene in Terrifier 2. The audience will likely glom onto one of these scenes. Add too many and it all becomes mush like the bashed in brains of so many teens in slashers.
I can’t emphasize enough just how lousy the dialogue is. At one point, the zombie field kids force-feed Mia some ice cream in order to turn her. She immediately throws up the ice cream. Sebastian (Sonam Kalsang) asks her “Where’d you learn how to do that?” Mia replies, “I’m a twelve year old girl. Of course I know how to throw up”. Now this is bad enough, but Sebastian retorts, “Dark. I like that”. What is Roth trying to say with this? Nothing. It’s a sad attempt at a joke, aimed at the expense of young girls. It’s disgusting.
Another prime example of the poor dialogue happens when the gang heads out to the cemetery to kill the necromancer. Chris spouts off some knowledge over a particularly sappy tree and his old flame Lizzie remarks (something along the lines of), “I take it back, you’re not a complete retard” then one of the kids in the back remarks that it’s not PC and she should say “touch of the ‘tism”.
These are jokes. I truly believe Roth expects you to chuckle along as these fly by, and it’s been no more evident than now that he’s out of touch. His humor is stuck in the early aughts when he released Cabin Fever. In what I can assume is an attempt to be relevant and up-to-date, he used AI throughout this film. The opening shot is AI. I should’ve left the theater then; it’s a simple shot of an ice cream truck driving down a residential road, why is it AI? Then as we learn the Ice Cream Man’s story, it’s told in AI vignettes. What would amount to a day and a half of shooting was relegated to take up a small town’s water supply, and for what? A child whose feet never touches the ground? A murder of crows that don’t obey the laws of physics?
As far as the performances go, the kids are doing their best with the material given, and the Ice Cream Man’s performance is reminiscent of David Howard Thornton’s (former neighbor of my film professor) performance as Art the Clown. In fact, the wild dismembering kids is also reminiscent of Zach Cregger’s Weapons (2025). Only Cregger had the common sense to hold out the dismembering until the film’s last moments to make that memorable (and hilarious, two things Ice Cream Man isn’t).
I don’t make this claim lightly, but I truly believe this is the worst film I’ve seen; and I make it m mission to watch terrible movies. If Tubi had a ten-film punch card, I’d be on my fifth by now. So trust me when I say it’s the worst of the worst.
Ice Cream Man was the debut film of Roth’s new company, The Horror Section. If this is the kind of gruel we can expect to be served, I won’t be asking for more. I’d much rather starve.
RATING: I award you zero stars, and may God have mercy on your soul.
Instead of a “Who should watch” I’ll do a
What should you watch instead of this:
· Weapons (2025)
o A phenomenally funny and terrifying film from Cregger
· Ice Cream Man (1995)
o It’s not good, but it takes wild swings and it’s free on Kanopy
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