Ice Cream Man is one of the most incompetent films I’ve ever seen. Not since Ballistic: Ecks vs Sever has a film fallen at virtually every creative hurdle set for itself. Forget student films; there are TikToks that are better edited, acted, written, photographed and streamlined. Even by co-writer/director Eli Roth’s low standards, this is an astonishingly inept turkey.
Chief among its failings is the brazen use of generative AI. Eli Roth confessed to using this reductive tool, built on plagiarism, in select scenes, but only after trying to pass them off as his own work in an interview with Polygon. This includes an animated short that the titular creep uses to hypnotise his targets, a video reel detailing his backstory, and possibly more, given the repulsive artificiality of some lighting and visuals.
Using generative AI is indicative of someone who’s either fallen out of love with the creative process, or never truly valued it to begin with. Applying it to horror, a genre whose roots champion novelty and mastery of practical effects, is a categorical betrayal of everything the medium stands for. It’s not innovation; it’s cutting corners under the guise of productivity. Based on the lame dialogue, unfinished story, and tasteless humour, special effects aren’t the only thing Roth and team cut corners on.
The premise, in isolation, does bear some intrigue: a Pied Piper revamp with desserts and sadism. The town of Bayleen Bay is visited by an Ice Cream truck, manned by a silent vendor (Ari Millen) who couldn’t look any more suspect if he was played by Pennywise the Clown. Kids flock to the truck and buy treats, despite their blatantly creepy names (Serpent Swirl, Croc Chomp, etc). That night, when the Ice Cream truck plays its jingle, the kids wake up and horrifically murder their parents, the brutality of the killings outclassed only by their fakery.
Past Eli Roth horrors, whatever their faults, at least crafted convincing gore. Not this time. Faces are caved in, limbs are mangled, and torsos are dismembered, but no need to avert your eyes, for none of it looks authentic. The use of rubber mannequins, fake blood and body parts, CGI, and (likely) AI is so obvious that they may as well have left the price tags on the props. One might lament the undermining of storytelling immersion if they weren’t scoffing at the ridiculous contrivances this film tries to pass off as scary or funny. This is the kind of picture where bicycles and ice cream scoopers become deadly weapons, and the adult victims flail around screaming instead of running away or pushing over their four-foot-nothing killers.
A particularly preposterous death scene involves the school’s headteacher getting his cranium cut open and the kids scooping out pieces of his brain, while he’s somehow still alive. Roth appears to be going for the morbid comedy angle, but it’s not funny; it’s depressingly juvenile. Other moments of “humour” include a set of kids killing their dentist father and then doing the floss dance over his corpse. How original. Let’s not forget the dialogue that’s just nastiness masquerading as politically incorrect jokes. Casual drops of the r-slur, and accusing one character of having “a case of the tism”, are among the verbal low points of exhausting writing where moronic characters repeatedly state the obvious, and often banter in the midst of imminent peril.
The lactose-intolerant Jared (Charlie Zeltzer) is one of a handful of kids who didn’t accept a treat from the Ice Cream Man and is therefore unaffected by his possession, which takes the form of sugar-coated mouths that look more like paint than sweeties. Since Bayleen Bay has exactly one police officer and fireman apiece (both are killed in idiotic sequences), it’s up to Jared and his fellow misfits to save the day. None of these characters is endearing or interesting. They exist to scream, run, and yell catchphrases while fitting the blueprints of simplified archetypes – the horny boyfriend, the kid jokester, etc. Atrocious acting reciting awkward dialogue only hinders their likeability.
Not that critiquing any of this matters, because the script doesn’t care about story, character, or theme. Beneath its slothful presentation, faux-gore, and immoral jokes lies a film that simply wants to disgust. Yet its blatant cheapness ensures it fails at even this base desire. There is utterly no thematic substance to speak of, with both the storyline and characterisations woefully incomplete by the time the credits roll. A shocking, albeit predictable, twist occurs, leaving Jared traumatised, and then the film stops, omitting a third act entirely. It’s the pinnacle of lazy copouts, but it’s also in keeping with the film’s sleazy ambitions.
Perhaps that’s all some viewers are looking for, but surely they would be expecting better craftsmanship? Weak acting, perverted direction, and chintzy mise-en-scene are all in abundance, but even basic continuity in pacing and story is amiss. Possessed children constantly appear and disappear, the slapdash blocking forgetting or remembering their existence whenever it suits the moment. An early dinner scene goes round in circles, lasting what feels like five minutes, wasting time for those who just want to witness carnage. Sadly, the janky editing and godawful effects obscure this; the shaky cam only remaining still to showcase moving lips out of sync with the Automated Dialogue Replacement.
The laws of probability suggest that something should have worked, if only by accident. But no. Ice Cream Man is soured milk. Vulgar, immature and sluggish, the film faceplants at every one of its efforts, achieving a level of cinematic calamity that gives Manos: The Hands of Fate a run for its money. This might’ve been of the enjoyably bad variety if not for the excruciating boredom and its shameful, artistically bankrupt execution. Calling this film rubbish is an insult to bins.
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