Ice Cream Man (2026)

Should you watch Eli Roth's ultra violent remake of a 1995 direct-to-video movie?

Eli Roth’s remake of Ice Cream Man (1995) is the product of a man who spent too much time wandering the horror section of Blockbuster Video and suffering endless disappointment with the direct-to-video releases that never lived up to the promise of their cover art. I recognize this affliction as I suffered from it myself. As soon as I heard the title I could recall the original version with Clint Howard holding up an ice cream cone with a skull shaped scoop of vanilla. And while I never rented that particular video I saw plenty of movies like it.

Ice Cream Man (1995)

The difference is my disappointment stemmed from the lack of characters and plot development where Roth’s seems to have stemmed from the tepid amounts of violence and gore. His remake of Ice Cream Man solves his own problem quite well. The movie begins with by quickly establishing the main characters and then proceeds to have the children of the Baleen Bay, seized in violent thrall to the titular ice cream man, enact horrific violence. It is little more than an hour long version of the ending to Weapons. Children wake up, murder their parents, go to school, murder their teachers. That’s it. That’s the movie. Near the end Roth may have realized the audience would like an explanation of what is going on here. This is where the protagonists discover the most unreliable character in all of cinema to tell us that a wizard did it. Ok, technically a necromancer.

If you want to attempt to diagnose the anxieties of modern life you can read a little more into the mind controlled/demonic children plot line and see it as parents fearful of the impact of technology. The pliable minds of children being drawn into TikTok brainrot, internet echo chambers, and AI psychosis resulting in an unrecognizable monster that will destroy the world the parents labored to create. Brainwashing and mind control are emerging as themes in contemporary horror and this is worth studying. It’s a shame Roth does so little with the concept and is satisfied with merely painting the screen with gallons of blood, producing a movie that is best suited for streaming background noise. Or, better still, not watched at all.