Written by Eli Roth & Noah Belson
Directed by Eli Roth
Starring Charlie Zeltzer, Ari Millen, Sarah Abbott. 
The Horror Section / MCT Studios – in Cinemas now

On the eve of the summer vacation, a seemingly idyllic town descends into madness when a mysterious ice cream man arrives, serving kids addictively sweet delights… with horrifying results.

First things first. Welcome. 

That’s a fluffy marmoset welcome to anyone who has endured – or even enjoyed – my reviews for the wonderful Sci-Fi Bulletin which, sadly, closed its doors to new content earlier this week (but remains available for its vast and invaluable archive). I’ll save the Ninja for another day.

Having picked up the reviewing bug (with the help and guidance of editor Paul Simpson), I’m going to see how it rolls, back here with the Ninja Marmoset, on my own site, which I have happily neglected in recent years. The wild parties at SFB Towers were a lot more fun. I’ll cast my net a little wider than the horror, sci-fi and fantasy I was covering from Sci-Fi Bulletin’s secret bunker, but to kick things off how about 86 minutes of blood-spattered, intestine squelching, brain-mushing  gross out comedy gore from Eli Roth?

I can’t say I’ve been particularly enamoured of Roth’s particular brand of horror over the years. Back in 2023 Thanksgiving got off to a decent satirical start but soon descended into aimless gore and the joke soon wore off. In Ice Cream Man Roth has a more coherent story to tell, with its roots in the sorts of Pied Piper mythologies where a corrupt, complacent community is punished by the theft of its children. Although in the case of Ice Cream Man they don’t just go dancing off into a cave; the little darlings are rendered a tad more pro-active than that.

Think Roald Dahl’s Matilda, but re-imagined by George Romero and Hieronymus Bosch… on a bad day.

If Roth succeeds here, it’s because his central conceit carries through to the very end and what he has to say is a bit more substantial than ‘people are greedy’ which was all he had to underpin Thanksgiving. And, unlike Zach Cregger’s Weapons – which also had shades of 18 certificate Dahl – the shifts from humour to something far darker are more assured. The funny stuff is far funnier (if you’ve got the stomach for weapons grade gross-out gore, and don’t try to take it seriously in any way) and so the darker turns land with a greater impact.

He’s also assembled a terrific cast of child actors for his central Goonies style gang, headed up by the phenomenally talented Charlie Zeltzer as Jared, as a sort of hapless Charlie Brown, charged with defeating his crazed zombie-like contemporaries.

Where the movie falls short is with its cardboard adult protagonists, albeit soggy and limp cardboard from the amount of blood and guts flying everywhere. Plus if you’re going to nod to a truly great movie like The Birds then have the patience to do it properly, and at least demonstrate that you understand why Hitchcock’s set piece became as iconic as it did.

Ice Cream Man definitely isn’t for everyone. The cranial misuse of an ice cream scoop isn’t everybody’s idea of laugh out loud funny – it’s tacky and tasteless in spades and there were a couple of walk-outs in my auditorium – but I had a ball. 7/10