'Ice Cream Man' Review: A Gory Mess That Squanders Its Grindhouse Potential
By Jack Ransom - August 19, 2026
The latest effort from controversial, notable modern splatter director Eli Roth. Ice Cream Man sees an idyllic summer town descend into madness when an ice cream man (Ari Millen) serves kids sweet delights with horrifying results.
Can’t deny that I was anticipating this quite a lot upon its initial announcement and promotion roll out, as Roth proved he still had the gnarly horror sauce with 2023’s Thanksgiving (the sequel of which I am now quite skeptical about given the quality of this). Unsurprisingly the screening was empty so my mate and I had fun taking the piss at points, but that didn’t really help distract from the myriad of issues and bizarre decisions on display here.
There really isn’t a plot or any substantial character-work here whatsoever and it essentially is the finale of Weapons stretched out to nearly 90 minutes… but lacking any of the build up and explosion of shock. As you can imagine, that is an idea that would get old quick and includes scenes that feel overstretched even in an 86-minute movie — I’m looking at you, utterly stupid ice cream paralysis sequence — coupled with consistently abysmal dialogue: the cringe teen bullies, Jared’s out-loud musings, of course Roth can’t resist dropping the R-slur, and a genuinely jaw-dropping description of the Ice Cream Man as being “from a war-torn country” due to him having a different accent, and skewed influences on display that you have seen done better in other flicks.
There is a cobbled together twist that crashes into the final 15 minutes and fails to shock —it did provide the laughs though with its ropey flashback presentation. Speaking of ropey presentation, the film has this sickly, cheap digital look to its proceedings and that aforementioned flashback, coupled with certain logos and an in-film videos are unabashedly AI generated with is a damming contrast to the genuinely savage, excessive and brutal practical effects. Sure, there is a twisted, macabre novelty to children sawing off limbs, pummelling faces, impaling, trampling, ripping their way through the inhabitants of Bayleen Bay… however it gets repetitive and numbing quickly. Roth also utilises irritating shaky-cam and stock music and dodgy ADR that unfortunately doesn’t have the charm as it does in a trashy Giallo flick.
The characters are barely given any development or depth whatsoever. I won’t pick on child actor performances, but the screenplay doesn’t do any favours for them and there is no chemistry or real sense of ‘knowing each other’ with the lead three kids. Ari Millen does his best mime/Art the Clown riff, shame he’s boring with a reveal that rips off another far more effective slasher icon.
Ice Cream Man melts into a pool of gory sludge that wastes a potentially grindhouse channelling fun premise and bludgeons the viewer with undeniably impressive gore that unfortunately gets repetitive fast. The garish palette, messy AI, uninteresting characters, frequently crap dialogue and aimless pacing put it towards the bottom of Roth’s filmography.
'Ice Cream Man' released in cinemas on August 7, 2026.
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