Ice Cream Man is the perfect summer horror flick. It is fun, and it doesn’t have anything that is going to require thought or pondering your own trauma. It’s just gory goodness. Oh, and just so you know, it has nothing to do with 1995’s Ice Cream Man, a fun little direct-to-video film starring Clint Howard. It’s not a remake and it’s not a sequel.
The film opens with a Little League game featuring a bunch of bullies picking on a skinny kid named Jared (Charlie Zeltzer). The game ends, just in time, because the ice cream man (Ari Millen) just pulled up. The kids all rush for the creamy treats. Just as Jared gets his cone, his sister Lizzie (Sarah Abbott) takes it away from him – he’s lactose intolerant. Insert a couple cute fart jokes.
Anyway, later that night, the kids all wake up and start killing their parents. It continues through to the morning, at school, with kids killing the teachers… and any other adult they find. Jared is one of three kids who don’t descend into the zombie-like manic killing state. Mia (Kiori Mirza Waldman) threw up her ice cream, and Tommy (Shiloh O’Reilly) doesn’t say why he didn’t have any. The other kids want to feed Jared and his friends the ice cream. Not destroy them – make them join the “team.”
It was a beautifully gory little film. There was about fifteen minutes of “backstory” that could have been trimmed down before the gore started. After that, it was pretty much non-stop gore. Kids cutting off their parent’s heads, using said heads for tetherball. Kids bashing in parents heads until they are just crushed and filled with blood. One particularly exacting scene in which a kid cuts open one adult’s head and scoops out the brain with an ice cream scoop.
The gore is consistent, and well done, as one would expect in an Eli Roth film. But unfortunately, that was really all there was. The story was pretty basic, and it definitely is not “elevated” horror. It’s pretty much kids kill adults for the entire runtime of the film. Nothing wrong with that. There were a few minor things that felt like they could have addressed better. For example, it is suggested that Mia is throwing up her ice cream due to an eating disorder. That seemed to be the kind of thing that could have used some follow-up. Similarly, I feel like the bullies should have faced some consequences for their bullying.
The ice cream man has a decent backstory (not great; it’s very reminiscent of Freddy Krueger’s backstory) but he doesn’t actually do anything. He serves ice cream and occasionally gives a little knowing smirk to the camera, but other than that smirk, he doesn’t do anything that can be connected to evil. He doesn’t even say anything.
I liked the way this movie ended, but I won’t ruin it for you. Oh, and stick around for a funny little after-credits scene. Ultimately, this is a fun, silly little summer gore flick. It doesn’t require too much thought or any analysis. It’s the picture version of a summer beach read.
ICE CREAM MAN will be In Theaters Nationwide on August 7, 2026.
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