--- title: "Ice Cream Man" year: 2026 kind: "film" canonical: "https://film.one/film/ice-cream-man" fi1m_id: "ice-cream-man" imdb_id: "tt36893729" tmdb_id: 1477712 wikidata_id: "Q136773033" fi1m_score: 34 critics_score: 35 critics_reviews: 13 published: "2026-09-21" updated: "2026-09-21T01:58:47.668069+00:00" region: "US" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Ice Cream Man (2026) Directed by Eli Roth · 1h 26m · MPA NR · Horror, Comedy, Thriller ## Identity Ice Cream Man - **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/ice-cream-man - **Type:** Film - **Fi1m ID:** ice-cream-man - **IMDb ID:** tt36893729 - **TMDB ID:** 1477712 - **Wikidata ID:** Q136773033 - **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt36893729/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/1477712, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q136773033 **Fi1m score: 34** · Critics 35 from 13 reviews *In a sentence:* Eli Roth gives the children the knives, then can think of nothing for them to do but the same thing again > Eli Roth’s killer-kids horror has one idea, an ice cream van whose treats turn a suburb’s children on their parents, and spends 86 minutes repeating it. The practical gore is committed; the script and the jokes are not, and most critics are right about it. ## Synopsis An ice cream van pulls into a quiet suburb in high summer, driven by a smiling man in white (Ari Millen) who calls himself Jonathan Smiley and hands out treats to anyone small enough to want one. The neighbourhood children, among them Jared (Charlie Zeltzer), Benji (Kole Parks), Tommy (Shiloh O’Reilly), Mia (Kiori Mirza Waldman) and Lizzie (Sarah Abbott), queue up. Whatever is in the mix turns them, one at a time, against every adult on the street, and the parents, Alison (Karen Cliche) and Marty (Eli Roth) among them, find their own kitchens turned into slaughterhouses. A local priest (Benjamin Byron Davis) knows something of who Smiley is and where he came from. Eli Roth directs from a script he wrote with Noah Belson; it runs 86 minutes and carries an 18 certificate. ## Review Eli Roth has made a film about an ice cream man whose treats turn a street’s children into murderers, and he has made it in 86 minutes with an 18 certificate, which tells you most of what he intends. The script, by Roth and Noah Belson, is a comic strip: the van arrives, the children eat, the adults die, and the panel repeats. There is a good, nasty little idea in there, the one thing every parent hands a child without thinking used as the weapon. The film has it for about twenty minutes and then does nothing with it but the same thing again. It is poor, and most critics have said so, and we agree with them. The ice cream man himself is the best thing here. Ari Millen plays Jonathan Smiley with a fixed grin and a voice pitched somewhere between a children’s presenter and a dentist, and he never raises it, which is the right choice in a film where everyone else is shouting. Jenifur Jarvis puts him in the white uniform and cap you would expect, and the more blood lands on it the more wrong he looks. We were unnerved by him early, before anyone had died, in a scene where he simply waits at the kerb with the engine running. Then the film gives him almost nothing else to do. The killings are practical, which we will count in the film’s favour. Latex tears, blood pumps, and a great deal of it ends up on the kitchen floor. The children, Jared (Charlie Zeltzer), Benji (Kole Parks), Tommy (Shiloh O’Reilly), Mia (Kiori Mirza Waldman) and Lizzie (Sarah Abbott), go at the adults with whatever is to hand, and the first time it happens we laughed, out loud, at a child’s complete lack of hesitation. By the fourth we had stopped laughing and started checking the time, because every kill is the same shape: a grown-up turns round, a small figure is behind them, something sharp, cut. Matt Lyon edits each one to the same beat, and the beat never varies. Brandon Roberts’s score keeps signalling a decade the film would rather have been made in. Simon Shohet shoots it on digital, flat and bright, so the suburb looks like a suburb at three in the afternoon and never like anywhere a horror film would want to be. Peter Mihaichuk’s van is the one designed object with any character; the houses around it are just houses. The jokes, and there are many, are the kind that announce themselves a line early, and the actors deliver them as if they had been told the audience would be laughing already. Roth casts himself as Marty, one of the adults, and plays him with a grin that suggests he is having a better time than we are. Karen Cliche, as Alison, is the only grown-up playing the fear straight, and she is right to. Benjamin Byron Davis’s priest carries the backstory, delivered in a few speeches that explain where Smiley comes from and why. It is the sort of explanation that makes a monster smaller, and the film would be better without it. We will say nothing about where the story goes, except that the last stretch turns meaner than anything before it, and the meanness does not read as a point. Roth’s *Cabin Fever* (2002) and *Hostel* (2005) were unpleasant with some conviction, and [*Thanksgiving*](https://film.one/film/thanksgiving) (2023) showed he could still stage a set piece with a beginning and an end. This is a step down from all three. It has the gore of those films without their patience, and it treats its audience as people who will sit through anything so long as somebody is bleeding. Anyone who buys a ticket for the practical effects will get what they paid for, and roughly nothing else. The rest of us were bored by the halfway mark of a film that is not long enough to be boring, which takes some doing. *Fi1m score 34, published 21 September 2026.* ## What the critics say The reviews are almost uniformly unimpressed: no critic recommends Eli Roth’s killer-kids horror, and most dismiss it outright. Where praise exists, it goes to the effects department. Several critics credit the practical gore, with The Hollywood Reporter calling the prosthetics designers the film’s real stars, and a few concede the premise of an ice-cream man whose treats turn children on adults has some promise. The complaints cluster around script and tone. Critics find the story thin, the jokey violence leaden and the kills repetitive after the first shock; almost nobody finds it frightening. Several measure it against smarter recent horror and Roth’s own Thanksgiving and find it wanting. The spread runs from a grudging C at The AV Club, which calls it a determinedly feel-bad film, down to The Guardian, which sees a cheap-looking, lazy picture with contempt for genre fans. The most generous verdict is that gorehounds may enjoy it and nobody else will. ## Straight answers **Is Ice Cream Man worth watching?** *Ice Cream Man* is not worth watching for most people, and we scored it 34. Eli Roth has one idea, an ice cream van whose treats turn a suburb's children on their parents, and repeats it for 86 minutes with the same kill cut to the same beat. Only those who want practical gore and nothing else will get their money's worth. **How long is Ice Cream Man, and what is it rated?** *Ice Cream Man* runs 1h 26m and is rated NR by the MPA in the US. It is a horror and comedy film. **Where can I watch Ice Cream Man in the US?** *Ice Cream Man* is available to buy from Amazon Prime Video from $19.99. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service. **How violent or frightening is Ice Cream Man, and is it suitable for children?** *Ice Cream Man* carries an 18 certificate and is not suitable for children. The violence is practical and plentiful, with children killing adults in their own kitchens with whatever is to hand, and the last stretch turns meaner than anything before it. Ari Millen's grinning ice cream man unnerved us early on, but the film is more repetitive than frightening. ### Reviews we read (13) - **The AV Club**, Jarrod Jones (C): Roth's silliest and bleakest work to date, a repetitive survival yarn delivering cheap splatter thrills via practical effects but lacking inventive escalation and ending on an aggressively sour note. It serves as a determinedly feel-bad movie with a viscous aftertaste. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/ice-cream-man-review) - **Time Out**, Simon Crook (45/100, inferred): Roth returns to shock bait in a killer-kids horror but plays the splatter for laughs that quickly wear thin. Gorehounds will enjoy the practical effects, but the uncertain tone and lack of fear leave it with a numbing brain-freeze. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/ice-cream-man-review-2026) - **Los Angeles Times**, Robert Abele (40/100, inferred): The critic finds the film a gory but empty splatterfest lacking narrative depth or scares, with Roth delivering jokey violence over substance. They single out the concept's potential undermined by trivial execution compared to smarter horror like 'Weapons.' [Read](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2026-08-07/ice-cream-man-review-eli-roth-ari-millen-charlie-zeltzer-horror) - **Radio Times**, Alan Jones (2/5): Gore galore but little more in this cheap, clunky chiller that mistakes endless bloodletting for entertainment. The jokey humour is leaden and the film lacks substance compared to better entries in the psycho-kids sub-genre. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/movies/eli-roth-ice-cream-man-review/) - **Sight and Sound**, Kim Newman (40/100, inferred): Roth unleashes possessed children on adults in an extravagantly violent but narratively insubstantial horror flick inspired by EC comics. The film is childish and steeped in 1980s tropes, lacking the edge of predecessors. [Read](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/ice-cream-man-sweet-treats-turn-sour-eli-roths-gory-story-evil-kids-attacking-adults) - **The Hollywood Reporter**, Frank Scheck (30/100, inferred): The film is an ultra-gonzo horror flick whose real stars are the prosthetics designers delivering relentless practical gore effects of children turning into homicidal killers. It is catnip for gorehounds but only for diehard slasher fans and absolutely no one else. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/ice-cream-man-review-eli-roth-1236660197/) - **The Times** (30/100, inferred): The review praises the central premise of an evil ice-cream man whose treats turn children into killers but criticises the execution and script. It notes that the promising idea is let down in practice. [Read](https://www.thetimes.com/culture/film/article/ice-cream-man-film-review-zztslxpjq) - **Variety**, Owen Gleiberman (30/100, inferred): The review calls it a derivative, ludicrous one-joke splatter schlock that's shamelessly basic, ham-handed, and not scary, with preposterous backstory and overdone gore. They single out the analog suburban kills as thin and the overall attitude as a cop-out beneath the director. [Read](https://variety.com/2026/film/reviews/ice-cream-man-review-eli-roth-1236826106/) - **The Guardian** (10/100, inferred): The critic finds Eli Roth’s low-budget retro slasher one of the year’s worst horrors, a massive step down from his recent Thanksgiving. It singles out the cheap digital look, lazy script, and overall contempt for genre fans as the main failings. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/aug/05/ice-cream-man-review-eli-roth) - **Collider**, Shawn Van Horn (5/10): The critic finds the film a one-note horror comedy with impressive gore but undermined by thin screenplay, poor acting, and a forgettable villain. Praises the practical effects and kill scenes but criticizes the lack of substance beyond the gore. [Read](https://collider.com/eli-roth-ice-cream-man-horror-review/) - **Deadline**, Pete Hammond (30/100, inferred): The critic finds the film an underdeveloped excuse for graphic gore that lacks plot or originality, comparing it unfavorably to better recent horror like Weapons. Roth's gleeful excess in the violence is noted but ultimately seen as tiresome and low-budget. [Read](https://deadline.com/2026/08/ice-cream-man-review-eli-roth-1237016757/) - **The Playlist**, Brian Farvour (D-): The critic calls the film a ridiculous, clichéd 86-minute misfire that borrows liberally from better movies like A Nightmare on Elm Street and The Stuff while delivering generic gore and a supernatural backstory that feels like an afterthought. Roth's direction and the young cast's rampage through adults are singled out as lacking depth or originality beyond surface-level shocks. [Read](https://theplaylist.net/ice-cream-man-review-eli-roth-20260805/) - **The Wrap** (20/100, inferred): The review deems the movie repetitive and boring after its initial shocks, criticizing its shallow story and lack of substance beyond gory gags. It singles out the over-reliance on killer-kids violence as failing to sustain interest or deliver meaningful satire. [Read](https://www.thewrap.com/creative-content/movies/ice-cream-man-review-eli-roth/) ## Details - **Director:** Eli Roth - **Director:** Eli Roth - **Writer:** Eli Roth, Noah Belson - **Cinematography:** Simon Shohet - **Editor:** Matt Lyon - **Music:** Brandon Roberts - **Production design:** Peter Mihaichuk - **Costume design:** Jenifur Jarvis - **Producer:** Eli Roth, Christopher Woodrow, Kate Harrison Karman - **Cast:** Ari Millen as The Ice Cream Man / Jonathan Smiley; Charlie Zeltzer as Jared; Kole Parks as Benji; Shiloh O’Reilly as Tommy; Kiori Mirza Waldman as Mia; Sarah Abbott as Lizzie; Benjamin Byron Davis as The Priest; Karen Cliche as Alison - **Runtime:** 1h 26m - **Certificate (MPA):** NR - **Release (the US):** 7 August 2026 - **Genres:** Horror, Comedy, Thriller - **Budget:** $6 million - **Box office:** $6 million - **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cgw3zNmFtRo ## Where to watch in the US - Amazon Prime Video: buy $19.99, uhd *Checked 2026-09-21.* Also available in: AT, DE, GB, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country. ## If you liked this - *The Stuff* (1985): Larry Cohen’s dessert-from-hell satire, cheaper than this and far cleverer about appetite - *Who Can Kill a Child?* (1976): The Spanish killer-children film that takes the question in its title seriously - *The Children* (2008): A British Christmas in the country, small children, and real dread rather than gags - *Village of the Damned* (1960): Blond children, blank stares, and menace built from silence instead of blood - *Thanksgiving* (2023), Fi1m 70: Roth’s previous holiday horror, with set pieces that begin, build and end — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/thanksgiving.md) --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/ice-cream-man