Most who know me are aware that I’m not the biggest horror fan in the world, but I’ve always had a soft spot for Eli Roth’s movies. From Cabin Fever, to Hostel, to The Green Inferno, and Thanksgiving, the more gory Roth gets, the more I dig it. This week he hits levels of depravity that we’ve never seen before with Ice Cream Man (review here), a truly twisted nightmare that will scar your happy childhood memories of the neighborhood ice cream truck.
Ice Cream Man has a pretty simple idea at its core. The ice cream man that we all knew and loved as kids…well, what if he’s an evil sonuvabitch bent on revenge? In the film, Ari Millen plays the sneering, mustached villain, whose sweet treats drive the kiddos to insane levels of violence against adults. Roth splatters the screen with guts, severed limbs, and decapitated heads, with all of the violence perpetrated by kids. You can practically hear Roth laughing with sadistic glee.
I had the chance to speak with Eli Roth about Ice Cream Man, a film he distributed himself. Roth explained that this was an idea creeping around in his head for years, and he finally had a chance to make it a reality. We talked about the film’s darkly comic edge, and what it’s like when the school-aged cast are all asked to unleash carnage. What do their parents think about that?
Ice Cream Man opens in theaters on August 7th!
