‘Ice Cream Man’ Review: Eli Roth’s Children-of-the-Damned Splatter Movie Is No Treat
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Variety's chief film critic Owen Gleiberman has panned Eli Roth's new horror film "Ice Cream Man," calling it a shamelessly derivative and ham-handed piece of shock cinema rather than genuine horror. The review argues that while Roth has previously delivered effective transgressive horror in films like "Hostel: Part II" and "Thanksgiving," this latest effort borrows heavily from superior films such as "Village of the Damned" and "Halloween" without matching their craft, resulting in a one-note splatter movie that is more ludicrous than frightening.
The plot centres on a sinister ice-cream vendor (Ari Millen) in the town of Bayleen Bay who hands out demonically possessed cones to local children, turning them into a murderous zombie cult that slaughters teachers and parents using household tools and everyday objects. Roth himself appears in the film as the doomed father of the young hero, and the critic highlights the graphic, "analog suburban" nature of the violence as emblematic of the film's crude, gimmicky approach to horror.
- Variety critic pans Eli Roth's "Ice Cream Man" as derivative shock horror.
- Demonic ice cream turns children into a killer zombie cult.
- Review says it's ludicrous rather than genuinely scary, unlike Roth's earlier films.
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Eli Roth is an American filmmaker known for graphic, provocative horror films such as "Hostel" and its sequels, as well as more recent titles like "Thanksgiving". He has built a reputation over two decades as one of horror's more divisive directors, often courting controversy with extreme on-screen violence rather than subtler, atmospheric scares.
"Ice Cream Man" is his latest release, a horror film in which a mysterious ice-cream seller in a small town corrupts local children with his products, turning them into a violent mob that attacks the adults around them. The premise draws on a long tradition of horror stories about children turned sinister or possessed, a genre with well-known predecessors going back decades.
Film reviews from major outlets such as Variety carry weight in shaping how a new release is received by audiences and the wider industry, particularly for a director like Roth whose films tend to attract strong opinions. Critical reception can influence box office performance, streaming visibility and a filmmaker's standing for future projects.
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