A serene summer town twists and turns when an ice cream man and his irresistibly laced desserts induce a “hell of a summer.” Cooties meets Terrifier in Eli Roth’s Ice Cream Man: a horror movie—a gory, bloody one—where a summer town becomes a demonic mania. After serving demonic frozen treats, the children become violent psycho killers, axing stomachs, splitting brains in half, and removing body parts from their victims. This psycho-horror film features Ari Millen as the devilish ice cream man, coupled with a cast including Benjamin Byron Davis and Karen Cliche. Let’s break down this bloody trailer, shall we?
The Gory Trailer
The moment you push the play button, an eerie ice cream truck strolls down an isolated street in Bayleen Bay, a vibrant town. Children of the town are then seen playing summer sports, ice cream melting down on their hands, and then, surely enough, buying tasty treats from the devil himself.
After devouring laced desserts, siblings, friends, and all types of children collectively dive into the blood of parents and teachers with long and sharp killing tools they somehow acquired. The film is beyond a “cat-and-mouse” game between the children and the adults; it’s more of a film where whoever’s not possessed will be slaughtered.
Lochlan Miller’s, Sarah Abbott’s, and Dylan Hawco’s characters are some of the many children and teenagers who haven’t gotten a taste of the devil’s treats—they are entrusted to cut off his head to end the horrifying nightmare.
Cooties Meets Terrifier Premise
Roth’s little monsters make it visually clear that this film appears to be a Cooties meets Terrifier premise, or freaky enough (‘Weapons’ Meets Willy Wonka in One of the Bloodiest Trailers of the Year).
In Cooties (2014), elementary students are exposed to a foodborne virus—tainted chicken nuggets turn them into ferocious, flesh-eating zombies. The battle for survival amongst the adults and matured teenagers in Ice Cream Man is reminiscent of the group of misfit teachers who fight to survive the terrifying outbreak in Cooties. The students’ mouths in Cooties are covered in rotting skin and black mucus, and it doesn’t get any better watching the children in Ice Cream Man taunt the town with brightly colored ice cream residue hovering on their faces.
“Art the Clown in Terrifier” was the exact thought that popped into my mind while watching the trailer. Bodies are slowly, intentionally torn apart by the heavy and painful weapons the children kill with: saws, axes, and baseball bats. I can picture Art the Clown in his retired chair, sitting back, and letting these psycho minions commit bloody murders. Eli Roth’s sick idea leaves people utterly terrified, or should I say parents and teachers? They put the same fear in people’s hearts as Art the Clown does—violent slashers deliberately adding victims to their kill count. A “The Children in ‘Ice Cream Man’ shares the same body count as Art the Clown” headline wouldn’t surprise me.
Terrifier and Cooties may have a final girl; however, what makes Ice Cream Man more peculiar is its possible final zombie girl seen collecting victims’ body parts as trophies. “Alpha female” is a better word to explain her role. Eli Roth’s Alpha female, the final zombie girl, does more damage to victims than the Alpha in 28 Years Later—she splits a man’s brain in half and scoops parts of it, then serves it to him on a cone.
They’re little psycho killers with no remorse for their families, parents, teachers, and any kids who are not indulging in their sick madness. Not only do the townspeople need to survive this Terrifier-like violence, but also the Cooties-like grotesque.
Behind the Grotesque Gore: the Prosthetic Makeup Team
The process of transforming the children into zombies with tainted ice cream smeared all over their mouths is not successful because of CGI, but rather crafted with practical prosthetics. This realistic, intricate, grotesque look brings stomach-churning mutations to life thanks to veteran special effects makeup artist Steve Newburn and Academy Award-winner Adrien Morot, who won the Oscar for Best Makeup and Hairstyling for his work on The Whale (2022).
The prosthetics team leans heavily into nauseating practical gore—and this is where I think it becomes a toss-up for Roth and his film; watching too many nauseating moments makes an audience turn the TV off. To many people’s surprise, this is unfortunately the case for many viewers, and I can confirm that I have done this numerous times. Even thinking about eating a chicken nugget or tasty dessert makes me nauseous.
The team’s execution on the layered rotting skin, black veins, and structural facial distortions is what makes these little devils feel realistic and terrifying. Dairy doesn’t look so good after witnessing the children vomit a yellow, gooey fluid. Aside from creating sticky, cruel monsters, the prosthetics team also created a pale, cold devil—the ice cream man. Ari Millen animates sardonic facial and body expressions that put more fear into the audience whenever his character appears on screen. His features resemble Sportacus in LazyTown, but his sneaky behavior appears as Robbie Rotten.
Roth’s Collaborations & New Media and Production Company
The Horror Section is Roth’s new media and production company, which launched in partnership with Media Capital Technologies. It’s an all-encompassing horror lifestyle and entertainment studio focusing on independent theatrical horror films, television, gaming, podcasts, and live events. In favor of horror fans, the studio allows them to invest and acquire equity in the venture firsthand—a space for fan ownership, very different from typical Hollywood studios.
Ice Cream Man is the first official feature film produced under Eli Roth’s horror production company. The studio’s broader slate includes other upcoming projects—films Roth himself wrote and directed. These films include:
- Jimmy and Stiggs: An alien-slasher film directed by Joe Begos and presented by Roth.
- Don’t Go In That House, Bitch!: A haunted house movie produced by Roth alongside Snoop Dogg’s Death Row Pictures.
- Stiletto: A feature project starring and produced by Gigi Gustin.
Roth has an interesting year ahead of him. I’m eager to see how the company’s fan-investment plan will work.
A Breakdown Worth Nine Minutes of Your Time
“We are going to talk about the full-length Ice Cream Man Red Band trailer that just dropped,” Brandon from I LIKE SCARY on YouTube says. “We’re going to be breaking it down and talking about what we can expect with this movie and what we’ve seen.” If you want to learn more about the lore of Ice Cream Man, let this be the only breakdown video you watch by someone who loves everything, all horror.
I’m not going to break down a breakdown of the trailer; however, I created a small list of things you can expect of Brandon’s breakdown:
Here’s what is discussed:
- A deep dive into the town of Bayleen Bay
- More on characters’ roles
- A deep dive into why some kids were “selected” to join the sinister madness and others were not
Brandon prompts specific questions to understand the “why” behind the ice cream man’s sudden appearance in the idyllic summer town. The video’s leading question is, “Are there any connections to the ice cream man and the town, or possibly with the victims?”
One interesting line in the video following a question about the priest’s interest in assassinating the ice cream man follows. “But if you think about it, he has to be connected to the ice cream man also in some type of way,” Brandon says. “Because how does he know all this backstory, this lore, this detail about the ice cream man?”
YouTube Horror is on the Rise—Let This Be Your Next Watch
Aside from horror films produced by big names with big productions, like Eli Roth producing his upcoming project, short horror films have been producing fan favorites with more intentional lore that connects from point A to point Z. We’re being welcomed with new slashers as YouTube horror makes its way to the big screen, from Curry Barker’s Obsession to Kane Parsons’ Backrooms. Brandon Allen’s Willy will share that same success sooner rather than later.
The 18-minute short horror film Willy follows a malevolent, childlike demonic figure named Willy who terrorizes the townspeople of Merrysville. The story takes place in a creepy location called Satan’s Playground—a wild, sinister name for a location—but this is no wilder than the nefarious crimes Willy commits. A group of friends’ Halloween night turns into horror when Willy encounters them and hunts them down.
What makes Willy stand out from new slashers, even Nikki in Obsession and the demonic entities in Backrooms, is the way he plans and kills his victims. He has that Pennywise walk where he slowly moves, teasing victims, because he knows he’ll win at the end. A clique of friends is also fun to watch in the genre, much more fun, as we’ll get to see more of these characters, like Jill.
Because of the first film’s success, Brandon Allen expanded the lore and universe of Willy—he’s coming back as writer, director, and producer for Willy Part II; the title of the film actually goes by Willy the Movie.
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As new horror emerges, slashers are taking on psychological horror—in Ice Cream Man, these little psychos will be spilling blood and making everyone watching lose their minds.
Ice Cream Man is scheduled to be released in theaters across North America on August 7, 2026
