During my visit to the filming of “Ice Cream Man” in Toronto, Canada, director Eli Roth described his new shocker to me as Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” – only with children instead of birds. Of course, that makes you curious – after all, Eli Roth is not known for sophisticated horror, but mostly serves his audience extensive splatter entertainment in which cultural and social criticism is conveyed with a crude sword instead of a fine blade.
After watching the film, I can at least understand the comparison – especially since one scene even pays direct tribute to Hitchcock’s classic. However, fans of the director need not worry, as “Ice Cream Man” unmistakably bears the raw signature of Eli Roth. The result is a hyperactive splatter experience that has absolutely nothing to offer in terms of narrative, but still delivers tons of fun gore entertainment. And if you really want to make comparisons, then “Ice Cream Man” is probably most likely a really fucked up version of the German legend “The Pied Piper of Hamelin” – only with a dash of “weapons” and significantly more blood and guts.
A strange ice cream seller supplies the town’s children with cool delicacies.
In the small US town of Bayleen Bay, the clocks tick more slowly. In the summer the children spend their time on the baseball field and enjoy the school holidays. They sweeten this free time with delicious ice cream – how lucky that a new ice cream seller (Ari Millen) has come to town, who goes around the houses in his truck and supplies young and old with frozen delicacies.
But the cool happiness not only brings a strong sugar shock, but also harbors demonic powers that the strange stranger can awaken with the melody from the ice cream truck. When the children hear these auspicious sounds, they transform into demonic killing machines that kill the city’s adults without mercy. Only a group around the lactose intolerant Jared (Charlie Zeltzer) is still sane – and the last hope for the city…
Story ugh…
First of all: If you haven’t been a fan of Eli Roth’s work, you won’t find much joy in “Ice Cream Man”. You might even be able to say that the ice cream shocker is the most genuine Eli Roth work to date, as the director is even producing his latest film with his own horror label, The Horror Section. And the crazy splatter fun actually delivers exactly what the filmmaker stands for – and even in a heightened form. Unfortunately, not only for the good, but also for the bad.
Eli Roth has never been a particularly good storyteller. The stories of most of his films could be summarized on a beer mat. “Ice Cream Man” is no exception, as the character drawing, plot and dialogue are sometimes shockingly simple.
The ice cream has unexpected side effects.
In this case there are also technical sloppiness. Successful camera angles – of which there are quite a few – are hardly allowed to develop their impact, while far too much space is given to extremely insignificant moments. An example of this is a scene at the dinner table in which family father Marty (Eli Roth) discusses with his daughter Lizzie (Sarah Abbott) for what feels like an eternity about whether she should be allowed to skip school the next day. This conversation is not only staged with a terrible lack of ideas, but also adds no narrative value whatsoever. Only Roth himself knows why this dialogue didn’t fall victim to the scissors.
It always becomes entertaining when “Ice Cream Man” drifts completely into B-movie madness and throws any claim to meaningfulness or film logic overboard. The explanation as to why the creepy ice cream seller turns the town’s children into murderous monsters is so outrageous that it caused great amusement, at least at the press screening. Perhaps it would have benefited the oddball played by Ari Millen if the mythological underpinnings of his character had been made a little more mature – but that can still happen in a possible sequel.
… splatter fun wow!
But all story weaknesses are forgotten when carnage descends on the city. In its best moments, this wild bloodlust with a healthy dose of anarcho energy presents itself as an “Itchy & Scratchy” cartoon come to life. Here, parents are beaten into unconsciousness with frying pans, human intestines are used as skipping ropes, Doctor Bibber is played on real people and ice cream balls are formed from brains.
What’s particularly nice about this madness is that Eli Roth repeatedly references other films. Small homages to “Frankenstein”, “The Wolf Of Wall Street”, “Shining”, “Hannibal” or, as mentioned at the beginning, Hitchcock’s “The Birds” can be identified. The biggest highlight here, however, is probably the “Home Alone” and “Kevin Alone in New York” references, in which it is finally realistically shown what terrible consequences Kevin’s plots would actually have – we just say “falling bricks”.
The children show no mercy.
Unfortunately, real tension can never emerge from this chaos – which is due on the one hand to a poor script and on the other hand to the acting limitations of the young actors. Because the group around young Jared always remains surprisingly calm despite the ice cream madness around them. Even when people around them are cut in half or horribly mutilated, they don’t get more than a slightly disgusted expression – and even in last-second rescue operations, the current relationship status is queried shortly beforehand.
Unfortunately, sometimes it’s pretty yesterday
Aside from the splatter passages, which score points with their nasty wit, the humor inserts also feel surprisingly yesterday in places. It’s clear that when it comes to humor, Eli Roth is stuck in the early 2000s, when “your mother” gags were still the cutting edge of comedy – and eating disorders in adolescent girls and fat children were laughed at carelessly. Whether you still find it funny or not is up to all moviegoers to decide for themselves.
Ultimately, it is probably the greatest strength of “Ice Cream Man” that it frees itself from any kind of story baggage and thus presents itself as the antithesis to the “elevated horror” trend of recent years. Anyone looking for ambiguous interpretations or areas of interpretation like in “Talk To Me”, “It Follows” or “Weapons” is in the wrong place here. Although the latter shows a certain similarity, at least due to the children and school theme. But apart from a quiet criticism of the media consumption of adolescents, Eli Roth’s latest work is a completely dull pleasure in a pleasant way. And so the audience can freely surrender to the unrestrained madness.
Conclusion: “Ice Cream Man” is an Eli Roth product in its purest form. A hyperactive carnage, bordering on gore-induced sugar shock. Anyone who hasn’t been able to do anything with the director’s gritty horror work won’t suddenly become a fan because of this film. However, if you enjoy cross-border splatter madness – and can overlook a few lapses in humor – you should have a good time at the cinema.