While director Eli Roth has made detours into thrillers (‘Knock, Knock’, ‘Death Wish’ remake), fantasy (‘The House with a clock in its walls’) and video game adaptations ( ‘Borderlands’) it’s for horror that he is really known. From his feature film debut, ‘Cabin Fever’ to the torture porn of ‘Hostel’ and the cannibal atrocities of ‘The Green Inferno’ the gore has always been front and centre and out on Home Entertainment formats the Ice Cream Man blu-ray /DVD is no different.
The film sees an idyllic summer town descend into madness when an ice cream man serves kids sweet delights with horrifying results…As the frozen treats unleash an insatiable hunger in the children who eat them. With each sweet scoop, once-innocent kids transform into gruesome butchers with their sights set on adults.
Starring Ari Millen (Orphan Black) as the sinister dispenser of frozen treats that turn kids into killers, and Charlie Zeltzer as the boy who discovers something is amiss and a cameo from Roth as Zeltser’s screen father. The adults are there to be lambs to the slaughter and they are slaughtered in typically graphic style with Roth and his effects team having a field day with heads smashed in, bodies dismembered all with a variety of implements never meant for such deeds.
Running a brief 86 minutes there’s a brief bit of background to the characters before the set up and the kids begin the slaughter with the kids revolting and what they do to the grown-ups and anyone those who have not eaten the ice cream is revolting though not quite of the level of THAT first shocking kill in his notorious ‘The Green Inferno’ (at the press screening we attended one audience member passed out). It’s a film very much of a Saturday night grindhouse movie that he has embraced but with far better effects although the films actual controversy when it was revealed that AI had been used in some scenes. Roth has cited Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’ as the films inspiration and there is one knowing homage to that film where, in a school playground instead of birds a group of murderous kids gather in the back ground.
‘Ice Cream Man’ blu-ray & DVD bonus features:
Released on blu-ray & DVD there’s a decent array of bonus features which includes:
- Audio commentary with Roth and co-writer Noah Belson
- Five featurettes about the films back story, kids, Roth, the ice cream truck and working with children.
- Behind the scenes featurettes that includes The Fishbowl kill, The Frying Pan kill, The Drill kill plus a chat with cast & crew
These are very much of the EPK variety but the five featurettes are informative and best is the commentary track with Roth enthusiastic and open about the films effects and set pieces….and the kids clearly had a great time making the film. You can’t really take anything away from him about this enthusiasm for his films and it’s a commentary which is far more informative than many that are recorded for the Home Ent market that often come across more as contractual obligations.
With the success of 2026’s horror films such as Obsession and Backrooms that are far less in your face Roth is something of an old school anachronism and perhaps might explain why the film fared badly at the box office earning just shy of $8m. His films are all about the blood, guts and gore and Ice Cream Man continues in that vein so if that’s what you want from your horror then this is the film for you.
Related feature : ‘The Green Inferno’: Eli Roth & Lorenza Izzo on making a brutal horror film
Related feature : The Pinocchio kill in Eli Roth’s ‘Thanksgiving’ ….
Here’s the trailer for the Ice Cream Man blu-ray …..
