Horror has had a fantastic year. Obsession has taken the box office by storm, becoming one of the most profitable films ever; Backrooms had a decent amount of success; Iron Lung did very well; Scream 7 might not have been good but did well at the box office. So at a time when something like Evil Dead Burn doesn’t fully satisfy audiences, it leaves a gap in the film calendar to come along and give a serving of horror in the summer season, just before the likes of Insidious: Out of the Further for fans of that franchise, and the critically acclaimed Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma for the indie horror audience. It’s a good window for something like Ice Cream Man if it’s a success.

When an Ice Cream Man turns up in a small American town, all the children flock to get ice cream. Overnight, the kids become possessed by something supernatural to kill any adult and force other children to join their army. One lactose-intolerant boy must escape the hoard of children, and uncover why this is happening and how to stop it.

Director, Eli Roth hasn’t had the greatest career as a director. It’s clear he leans towards the horror genre, having made a little cult favourite, Hostel and feels likehe’s spent a lot of time trying to make more films on that level. Since Hostel, he has directed The Green Inferno, Knock Knock, Thanksgiving and Borderlands, none of which have done overly well at the box office or been particularly well-received, but are low budget films in a genre that has a following like no other. However, to have any sort of decent box office success, even with horror, it needs to have some sort of fraction of good word of mouth to get some people into seats. With the reviews for this film, straight from the off, they were some of the worst I’d seen for a long time (I never looked into reviews too much because I didn’t want them to influence my opinion). I like to watch bad films sometimes. I remember watching a really small film called Wolf several years ago, which I gave the same rating to and being like, at least they got the film made because the chances of that even happening are so slim, and no one sets out to make a bad film.

So what’s actually bad about this film? Everything. I really didn’t want to give it the lowest rating, but there isn’t a single redeeming feature of the film that I can think of. I’ll start with the direction, I’ve spoken about it a few times recently where I think the most important thing a director can do is understand the tone of what they’re trying to produce. I think it is clear that Roth is aiming to produce a film that tonally is similar to the likes of the Terrifier films, which are extremely gory and have a bit of fun almost about them as well. Don’t get me wrong, they aren’t great as films, but they are successful thanks to being low-budget and a solid, creepy performance by David Howard Thornton, and some of the most over-the-top kills ever it at least had an impact. When I compare Terrifier to Ice Cream Man, there are no memorable kills particularly, there’s no sense of fun (when it tries at time to be, but never lands and feels awkward), and the character of the Ice Cream Man does very little. I truly think they thought they were onto a big winner, and that the Ice Cream Man costume was going to be the big costume guys would wear this Halloween but with no impact, it’s hard to see that happening.

Roth also wrote the film, alongside Noah Belson (this is his first film writing credit). I don’t know how much of this film is based on a 90’s film of the same name (because I’ve not watched that one), but it seems to have a completely different synopsis, and isn’t credited. Some of the writing is baffling. I found that multiple things either aren’t explained or just straight up don’t make sense in the slightest. The film also has some of the most clunky dialogue, which never feels natural and spells it out for the audience in a horrible way.

I don’t blame the kids in this film. For a lot of them, it’s the first time they’ve been in anything this big and trying to carry this film that often doesn’t make sense. But even the adults in this film, including Eli Roth himself, don’t bring anything to the table in their scenes. When they’re working with dialogue this bad, I’m not surprised.

It’s also hard to talk about this film and not mention the biggest controversy, the use of AI in this film. There isn’t a great deal, but any feels like too much in such a creative industry. And what’s worse is that the shots, which are AI, and they aren’t subtle. It’s very obvious which are AI, are short easy shots that could’ve been an easy day or two shooting just those shots alone. There just isn’t an excuse.

Overall, Ice Cream Man has shot straight to the bottom of my ranking of films of the year because of awful writing, bad performances, forgettable characters, use of AI and completely missing the mark by a mile of what it’s aiming for, and the market that can eat up these films. However, this film will disappear and only be remembered as one of the year’s worst films.

What did you think of Ice Cream Man?

A quiet couple of weeks for releases since Spider-Man: Brand New Day has been dominating the box office, but it starts to pick up more as the summer movie season comes to an end, and the autumn cinema releases start to rear their heads. So be sure not to miss every review by following @floodersfilms on X, Facebook and Instagram!