Ice Cream Man (2026) has NOTHING to do with Ice Cream Man (1995.) I just wanted to get this out of the way sooner.
Eli Roth’s Ice Cream Man is pure mayhem with virtually no thinking required
Ithis Men’s Cream is not so much a film as a referendum on Eli Roth.
He’s a polarizing director, to say the least. Some of the criticisms leveled at him are VERY valid and some just seem like blatant nitpicks. Basically, what you think of Roth – the director and the person – as you approach the film will paint your reception to it. Ice Cream Man. If you like Roth’s 80s revivalist homage stylings, you might like this movie. And if you think he’s a talentless thief, a shameless misogynist and a Greta Thunberg who hates Zionist…well, Ice Cream Man it’s not going to change your opinion there.
Ice Cream Man is an interesting film, even if it is difficult to qualify it objectively GOOD A. For starters, it enters theaters without any sort of MPAA rating, which seems to be a problem. a lot a greater history in the field of cinema. Alongside films like Terrifying 3we are witnessing in real time the slow death of the Motion Picture Association of America’s ratings system, which has unlimited implications for independent filmmakers, the accessibility of small studios and obviously the kind of content we can see in mainstream films. Of course, this was lost in the confusion, as Roth and his friends chose to use artificial intelligence for a few scenes – which I think are a few brief animated sequences, but I don’t say that with 100 percent confidence – and all of a sudden we still have another controversy underlying the film.
Yes, many commenters in the hardcore horror community are vivisection the movie online (some of which don’t even have seen the entire movie.) I kinda feel like they’re incorporating their pre-existing grudges against Roth into the movie and just projecting them on the film itself. It reminds me of the hubbub over there Scream 7 earlier this year, with all those promised protests against the film…only for it to shatter the franchise’s box office records despite (or maybe because?) from all the fury of the Internet. To make a long story short, there seems to be a keen disconnect between the world seen by agitated horror influencers and the world as in fact exists in Central America. As crazy as it sounds, I guess the majority people who pay tickets to see Ice Cream Man I have no idea who Eli Roth is in the first place and I don’t care what his political allegiances are. They’re just there to see blood, guts and gore, and on that front, I doubt any of them are. terribly disappointed.
I haven’t said much about the movie itself. Surprisingly, this is not an oversight on my part. Ice Cream Man is about as close to a completely plotless film as I’ve seen in theaters in age. There’s maybe ten minutes of exposition followed by 70 minutes of relentless carnage – then something that somehow feels like an ending, but not really. You really can’t describe the plot of the film as much as you do play by play for the gore effects. I would call it the Troma version of Weaponswithout the fact that the 1989 cult classic Beware! Children at play IS pretty much the Troma version of Weapons Already.
And Ice Cream Man is definitely inspired by Beware! alongside a number of killer films we’ve had over the years, from The children has Cooties (Besides, the people who made that one film in particular is NOT happy with Roth’s production.) Oddly enough, apparently, the only horror film that is not obliquely referenced by Ice Cream Man is the 1995 version of Ice Cream Man with Clint Howard. The names are identical, but story-wise they pretty much have one thing in common aside from the frozen dessert motif.
Roth runs through the gauntlet of gore effects in this one. We have the pinking shears matricide of the original. Night of the Living Deadwe have the brain that recovers the cannibalism of Bloodsucking monsterswe even lent the fire extinguisher bashing montage. Irreversible. There’s not much originality here, and I suppose that’s the point. This is Roth getting as close as possible to his obvious dream project, a film that is essentially a feature film with superior ’80s splatter effects, with no plot to get in the way of the story. If you’re just there to watch people get broken and immolated and multiple forms of miter saw trauma, you will have nothing to complain about. Alas, if you want something that actually looks like a real movieBut you’re going to have a hard time putting up with it.
It’s a bit of a bait and switch movie. Without delving too deep into spoiler territory, there is East an eponymous glacier, and it seems to have some sort of supernatural comes out on college kids in small-town America. Of course we don’t get the explanation until the last 15 minutes of the film, at which point it feels like it was literally went in at the last second to keep the sequel potential alive. Ultimately, it’s not really important Why the children in the film turn into frozen zombie serial killers, it’s simply the fact that they are. Nobody asked why the birds The birds went crazy all of a sudden, so why should we apply the same rationality to this film?
It’s a film that lacks strong performances, but again, I feel like that’s intentional. It’s basically Roth working his way through his lifelong Arrested Development problems, trying to recreate his own patchwork quilt. Sleep camp Or Bad news bear to feed his inner Bart Simpson. I’m not surprised to see Roth appear as a supporting character – a lawyer who keeps making jokes about Mitt Romney, for some inscrutable reason. Some people say Eli is stuck in the 80s, but after seeing his performance in this movie I wonder if he’s stuck in the 80s. 2012 instead.
Ice Cream Man is a critic-proof film. Nothing I can say will make the people who I want to hate I’m reconsidering it and nothing I can say will make people who I already love him in principle rethink their beliefs. It’s a mayhem movie that tries very hard to land in NC-17 territory, but it falls short Nothing that you might consider adult sensibilities – you know, unimportant things like “story,” “solid acting,” or “coherent logic.”
Rightly, Ice Cream Man It’s a bit like eating too much ice cream. You can’t deny instant gratification, but once the stomach ache sets in, it’s a truly terrible experience.
TRY IT IF YOU LIKE: Cabin Fever, Children of the Corn, directors have too much carte blanche
DIRECTOR: Eli Roth
WRITER(S): Eli Roth, Noah Belson
WITH : Ari Millen, Charlie Zeltzer, Sarah Abbott, Eli Roth
STUDIO: The horror section, MCT Studios
DISTRIBUTER: Release of iconic events
RUNNING DURATION: 86 minutes
LANGUAGE: English
RELEASE DATE: August 7, 2026
