‘Ice Cream Man’ big on the kill variety, unapologetic as all-hell, and not for the faint of heart (or stomach)… but we’ll probably watch it again on stream

By creammagazine, August 9, 2026

There’s always something a little creepy about a pencil moustache. Think Benson Boone; or porn director doing dodgy underground deals; or wife beater in a wife beater who’s trying to look like a macho hero; or B-grade movie directors putting all their freaky childhood observations on the big screen for all to be subjected to… A bit creepy. So, a pencil-moustached ice cream man who never says a word but is always serving his wares for free and with a wry smile? That’s real creepy.

Fitting then, that such a character is central to Eli Roth’s new horror film, aptly named Ice Cream Man, which sees an idyllic American town descending into madness when said vendor starts serving kids sweet treats with horrifying results. Whatever the strange ingredient is in this dude’s ice cream, it’s turning the kids into zombies out to kill any adult they encounter.

It’s a film that plays on the common horror premise that it’s the sins of the father and mother that have lead to horrific outcomes a generation or two down the line.

Like most zombie films, there doesn’t need to be a real reason for the undead’s particular target – if it’s human flesh, it’s good enough for the average zombie. But here, it’s adults – predominantly teachers – who are victims of this sudden surge in insane en masse homicide and you find out why by the third act.

Leading up to that, audiences are subjected to all manner of bizarre kills – methods of murder that even the most ardent of serial killers mightn’t imagine: teachers choked to death on pop sticks; glue guns and staplers adopted as weaponry; human gizzards being pulled out as kids play ‘rubber bands’ – you get the creative picture.

But what’s more intense than the manner of kills in this picture is the subliminal overtones and absolute shunning of any form of wokism. A black kid wears a t-shirt that states PROBLEM in red; girls with eating disorders give tips non-chalantly to girls without them; and a kid in a rainbow-print t-shirt ends up killing his doting mother for laughs – because of course Hollywood must keep the numbers up in negative black, feminist and LGBTQ representation under the muscle of Trumpism – that which appears to be pervading every avenue of arts and entertainment lately. (Look carefully, kids).

Still, Ice Cream Man, even while its characters are as trope as they are in most other horror flicks, does win in the originality stakes – again it’s about those kills, of which Freddy Krueger would be proud.

Fans of the genre – particularly of slasher and gore – will see just where this fits in the pantheon of horror. But if you’re more of the faint of heart (and stomach), you’re better off sticking to your Scream/Scary Movie-type reboots.

Antonino Tati

‘Ice Cream Man’ is in cinemas now.

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