Ice Cream Man — Ice Cream Man (Blu Ray)
Ice Cream Man is the 10th feature film from Boston-born writer-director Eli Roth, who is one of the more notable/ known horror directors of the 2000s’. The US small-town-set film blends horror, comedy, and kids trying to save the day adventure- with side roads in splatter gore, wonky childhood unease, and eerier monochrome cartoon disquiet. Here from StudioCanal is a Blu-ray release of the film, featuring a directors/ writers comentory track and a few other extras
I guess it’s fair to say Mr Roth is a director you either like or dislike; I fall firmly in the first camp and have generally enjoyed everything he’s put out. And I’d say Hostel & Hostel Two are two near-perfect modern/mainstream horror films, so when I saw Ice Cream Man was coming out, I was eager to see it…Sadly I missed it on the big screen, so here I’m glad to be able to check out the Blu-ray.
The one-hour-and-twenty-six-minute film is set in the fictional small American town of Bayleen Bay, and was shot between Hamilton & Toronto in Canada. We open with a blue-and-white painted ice cream van coming into town on a summer's day, appearing just as the day's junior baseball match has finished. Seemingly, most of the children, except for short- for-his age/ pre-teen Jared Mayfield ( Charlie Zeltzer) indulge in the ice cream; he can’t, as he’s lactose intolerant.
After the game, we drop into the Mayfield house- meeting lawyer mom & dad Alison (Karen Cliché) and Marty ( Eli Roth), and older Lizzie ( Sarah Abbot), who half the town's teens fancy. The town goes to bed, but Jared is awoken by the ice cream van playing its eerie tune through the night- this sets off a spree of brutal murders, as zombie/ ice cream kids kill their parents- we get heads being sawed through or bashed in, limbs sawn off with circular saws, and a shear stabbing, etc.
The next day Jared rides to school, and most of the kids are all in the same murderous trance- with more brutal killing ensuing- this time around the teachers are the focus, with their gory demises being inflicted by microscopes being rammed into heads, tops of heads cut off & brains scooped out, hands looped off by paper guillotines, etc.
So Jared teams up with the few school kids who didn’t eat the ice cream to stop the killing/ destruction of his town, and to find out who the ice cream man really is.
The largely child cast is good, as are the adults too, and you really feel/ believable the victims' shock when they are butchered. The gore largely looks good/ creative, with minimal CGI elements.
The blue ‘n’ white Ice cream van is low-key creepy, with a cartoon black-eyed ice-cream cone on its top. The Ice cream man is neatly moustache, and says nothing throughout the film, yet he manages to convey a feeling of uneasy menace- he has a decidedly old school US ice-cream seller look- with his white shirt & trouser, and hat.
All in all, Ice Cream Man was an engaging and entertaining commercial horror film- the balance of gore, humour, and creepiness is done well, and we get a neat/ fairly surprising twist in its tail.
On the extras side, we get a few things- first off is a commentary track from director/ co-writer Eli Roth & co-writer Noah Belson- this is most entertaining/ informative. They start by talking about how they’ve known each other since 7th grade- when they both went to try out for the school play version of Fiddler on the Roof. We find out the idea for the film dates back twenty years, just after he made Cabin Fever- with Belson writing early script drafts. They talk about how there were loads of wasps when they were filming the opening Little League game, and unfortunately they were homing in on the other team in the game, as they had a yellow and black strip. They talk about cast members as they appear, and how they wanted natural-looking kid actors. They chat about how unsettling the idea of an ice cream van driving around at night- before discussing each of the kills as they appear. They touch on the creepy retro cartoon elements and the film's score. Later on, they discuss locations, point out a scene inspired by The Birds, and point out details of the manic schoolyard scene.
Otherwise, we have: Back Story ( 2.10), Kidocalypse (3.10), Working With Eli ( 2.43), Ice Cream Van (2.35), Working With Kids (2.51), and a four-part behind-the-scenes featurette (12.25).
It's nearly twenty-five years since his debut film Cabin Fever, and Roth is still making entertaining, shocking and effective horror films- which you can’t say for many genre directors. Ice Cream Man balances gore, humour, and creepiness well, and it’s been left open for a possible sequel, which would be great.