ICE CREAM MAN movie poster | ©2026 The Horror Section

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Ari Millen, Charlie Zeltzer, Shiloh O’Reilly, Kiori Mirza Waldman, Sarah Abbott, Benjamin Byron Davis, Karen Cliche, Dylan Hawco, Eli Roth
Writers: Eli Roth and Noah Belson, story by Eli Roth
Director: Eli Roth
Distributor: The Horror Section
Release Date: August 7, 2026

ICE CREAM MAN, directed by Eli Roth from a screenplay by Roth and Noah Belson, from a story by Roth, may or may not be based on the short story “I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream” by John Farris.

Farris’s story is not credited here, but it was the basis for the 2007 MASTERS OF HORROR episode “We All Scream for Ice Cream.” Both it and ICE CREAM MAN have a sinister ice cream truck proprietor (in ICE CREAM MAN, a marvelous, wordless Ari Millen), along with his mobile shop, who has a strange effect on the relationships between parents and children in a small town.

Both the movie and the TV episode owe a good deal to the medieval legend of the Pied Piper, about a man who takes supernatural revenge on people who have wronged him by bewitching their children. In the myth, the children follow the piper away, never to be seen again; here, they stick around, with homicidal results.

A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET is a riff on this as well, but where Freddy Krueger was guilty of the crimes for which he was killed, the Ice Cream Man turns out to be an innocent, blamed for the heinous offenses of another. His vengeance is righteous, if extremely gory.

ICE CREAM MAN invites us to the picturesque town of Bayleen Bay, a wholesome slice of Americana. In the park, kids play tag and baseball, although poor preteen Jared (Charlie Zeltzer) isn’t very good at the latter. He’s also lactose intolerant, so he reluctantly misses out when a new ice cream truck appears, distributing sweet treats to the other youngsters and teens.

Jared notices, as do we, that instead of the stickers an ice cream truck customarily bears with pictures of its wares, this one has a smiling cartoon snake for a flavor called Serpent Swirl, a smiling cartoon bug for a flavor called Creepy Crawler, and so on. The ice cream looks and tastes normal, though, so the young customers are happy to eat it.

All the boys have crushes on Jared’s gorgeous high-schooler big sister Lizzie (Sarah Abbott), who has recently broken up with her doofus boyfriend, newly-minted handyman Chris (Dylan Hawco).

Jared and Lizzie’s parents Marty (filmmaker Roth) and Alison (Karen Cliche) are lawyers. While loving, they are exerting heavy pressure on Lizzie to join the family profession, started by their strict grandfather.

That evening, the children who’ve eaten the ice cream begin murdering their parents in a variety of gruesome ways. In the early morning, they move on to killing adult neighbors. When Jared gets to junior high in the morning, his classmates sit mutely at first, then go after the teachers.

Jared encounters two unaffected peers, Mia (Kiori Mirza Waldman) and Tommy (Shiloh O’Reilly). They team up in an attempt to escape the school – and to try to stop the Ice Cream Man, if they can.

The first act is a bit relaxed, but it’s also relatively short, giving us time to get to know the main characters and also to lay in some mythology. Once the blood starts flowing, the pace picks up to racing speed. Given how fast events are moving, we can’t blame some characters for metaphorically failing to look before they leap.

Roth is gleeful in designing the murders, which the kids often treat as tactile arts and crafts projects. It’s heavy on comic sadism (if that’s not an oxymoron), with splatter galore.

There’s a sense that most of the children are slightly older than they ought to be, likely for budgetary reasons (easier to find teens who look younger and can legally to work long hours than to use actual little ones who come with time restrictions, mandated teachers, and considerations about having them witness and enact extreme, albeit pretend, violence). This doesn’t really mar the overall effect, as the performers look young enough to be suitably creepy.

ICE CREAM MAN has a playful sensibility – the opening credits mention that it’s “filmed in S’cream-o-Vision” – that runs alongside its full-throttle horror. It’s a bit like TALES FROM THE CRYPT on blast, not trying to do anything new, just succeeding at being twisted and eerie enough to be bloody fun.

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