{"id":12556,"date":"2026-08-03T22:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mailnewsgroup.com\/ohmr\/?p=12556"},"modified":"2026-08-04T06:32:58","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T11:32:58","slug":"a-sugar-rush-drenched-in-blood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mailnewsgroup.com\/ohmr\/a-sugar-rush-drenched-in-blood\/","title":{"rendered":"A Sugar Rush Drenched in Blood"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\n \t<\/i> Read Time:<\/span>8 Minute, 25 Second <\/div>\n\n <\/div>

MOVIE REVIEW
\nIce Cream Man<\/strong>
\n –  <\/strong> <\/strong> <\/strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n

Genre: <\/strong>Comedy, Horror, Thriller
\nYear Released:<\/strong> 2026
\nRuntime: <\/strong>1h 26m
\nDirector(s): <\/strong>Eli Roth
\nWriter(s): <\/strong>Eli Roth, Noah Belson
\nCast: <\/strong>Ari Millen, Benjamin Byron Davis, Eli Roth, Karen Cliche, Dylan Hawco, Sarah Abbott, Shiloh O’Reilly, Kiori Mirza Waldman, Charlie Zeltzer, Charlie Storey
\nWhere to Watch:<\/strong> in theaters nationwide on August 7, 2026<\/p>\n

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RAVING REVIEW: <\/strong><\/strong><\/strong>The least frightening thing about the Ice Cream Man is how he looks. Ari Millen’s vendor arrives in Bayleen Bay wearing his uniform, a narrow mustache, and the welcoming smile of someone trusted to park beside playgrounds. Nothing about him screams out panic. He simply waits for the children to approach, hands them something sweet, and watches them walk away with the satisfaction of a man convinced he has made their day better. The horror begins after they finish eating.<\/p>\n

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Eli Roth has spent much of his career turning ordinary things into sources of anxiety, but ICE CREAM MAN may contain his most direct collision between innocence and cruelty. An ice cream truck represents summer freedom, loose change gathered together in a hurry as that familiar tune plays, sending every child on a block running toward the street. Roth takes that memory and asks what might happen if the person behind the window violated the unspoken trust attached to it.<\/p>\n

His answer involves murderous children, severed limbs, bloodshed, and enough broken adults to leave Bayleen Bay facing an immediate population crisis. The concept sounds like an outrageous joke stretched across 86 minutes. Roth and co-writer Noah Belson avoid that expectation by spending enough time with the town’s young people before the violence begins, allowing ICE CREAM MAN to function as a warped coming-of-age story rather than a collection of elaborate deaths.<\/p>\n

Jared is a shy kid whose attempts to navigate bullies, friendship, and his feelings for Mia already make summer complicated. Charlie Zeltzer brings a nervous energy to the role, particularly when Jared’s imagination and courage begin separating from how other people see him. His friendship with Elliot has the loose, occasionally ridiculous connection of boys who’ve spent enough time together to communicate through insults, unfinished plans, and shared panic.<\/p>\n

Kiori Mirza Waldman gives Mia more dimension than the unattainable crush Jared initially imagines. Her confidence hides uncertainty, and the growing emergency forces her to stop maintaining the version of herself presented to classmates and social media. Shiloh O’Reilly completes the younger group as Tommy, whose tough exterior becomes increasingly difficult to maintain once the neighborhood stops obeying the rules.<\/p>\n

Their chemistry matters because Roth wants us to enjoy the film before asking us to fear nearly everyone these children’s age. These kids swear, tease one another, become distracted at the most inopportune moments, and react to danger with a mixture of terror and excitement that feels appropriate for children who haven’t had time to understand the scale of what’s happening.<\/p>\n

Sarah Abbott functions somewhere between the adolescent and adult sides of the story as Jared’s older sister Lizzie. She’s frustrated with her family, unimpressed by the increasingly grand gestures of her ex-boyfriend Chris, and protective of Jared despite behaving as though he regularly ruins her life. Abbott gives Lizzie enough impatience to feel like a real sibling without losing the affection underneath it.<\/p>\n

Dylan Hawco plays Chris as the kind of young man who believes buying a larger truck qualifies as emotional development. His attempts to regain Lizzie’s attention give the first half some of its most direct humor, although the character becomes more useful once the swagger stops being protection against anything. The relationship is pretty generic, but Abbott and Hawco create enough warmth to keep it from becoming another distraction between attacks.<\/p>\n

Eli Roth and Karen Cliche play Jared and Lizzie’s parents, Marty and Alison, establishing one of the households that the arrival of the truck will soon tear apart. Their family scenes are playful and deliberately ordinary. These adults embarrass their children, enforce rules, and assume that whatever trouble the summer brings will remain within the boundaries of teenage rebellion. That normality is necessary. ICE CREAM MAN isn’t frightening because the children suddenly behave strangely; parents expect children to behave strangely. The terror comes from adults realizing that authority, affection, and recognition no longer have any influence. A child can look directly at a parent without anything registering, leaving the adults trapped between the instinct to protect their children and the need to protect themselves from them.<\/p>\n

The movie’s largest set piece is designed as an assault on every limit associated with child performers and mainstream horror. Roth unleashes an entire school of young killers upon teachers, administrators, emergency workers, and anyone else unlucky enough to enter their path. The sequence builds through one gruesome idea after another, rarely allowing the audience enough time to recover before another piece of practical carnage appears.<\/p>\n

Steve Newburn, Adrien Morot, and the effects team make that excess tactile. Bodies have weight, blood creates a mess that digital effects could never duplicate, and each mutilation carries the imperfect physicality that makes practical gore both revolting and strangely satisfying. Roth isn’t hiding anything here. He wants the audience to appreciate the construction almost as much as the destruction, turning the sequence into an exhibition of what can be accomplished with prosthetics, props, stunt performers, and enthusiastic children covered in syrupy makeup. The inside joke is that the kids don’t regard any of it as horrifying. They run, laugh, play games, and treat the dismembered adults around them like objects discovered during an especially exciting recess. Their joy makes the violence more upsetting and funnier, depending on how willing a viewer is to enter Roth’s particular corner of taste.<\/p>\n

That willingness will determine nearly everything. ICE CREAM MAN has no interest in pretending its child-on-adult violence serves as respectable. There are ideas about parental fear, innocence, trust, and children rejecting the world built by adults, but Roth primarily wants the images to provoke a laugh and shock in equal measure. Anyone hoping the film will examine generational resentment or the moral implications of adults defending themselves from children will find those questions pushed aside whenever another kill enters the frame.<\/p>\n

Ari Millen prevents the spectacle from completely consuming the character who started it. The Ice Cream Man doesn’t speak, forcing Millen to construct a personality from tiny shifts in posture, eye contact, and that fixed smile. He doesn’t move like a slasher or traditional predator. His gentleness is what makes him disturbing. Millen plays him as someone who genuinely cares for children and believes his actions release them from the failures of adulthood. There’s no anger in the way he offers up the ice cream. He behaves like a caretaker delivering a gift, which makes every consequence feel like part of a plan he considers compassionate.<\/p>\n

ICE CREAM MAN is strongest when it behaves like a contaminated fairy tale in which a smiling stranger arrives, tempts children, and leaves the adult world collapsing behind him. Attempts to define the rules, history, and supernatural mechanism reduce something primal into a problem the characters can potentially solve.<\/p>\n

Bayleen Bay is bright, colorful, and drenched in summer sunlight. The streets, homes, school, and parks belong to a childhood adventure until blood begins interrupting the composition. That brightness makes the gore impossible to hide. Red spreads across white walls, pastel ice cream, uniforms, and community spaces. The movie doesn’t descend into darkness once evil arrives. It forces the horror to remain exposed beneath the sun, where every absurd detail can be seen.<\/p>\n

ICE CREAM MAN is unmistakably an Eli Roth movie, including the qualities that make his work exciting and the habits that prevent some of it from reaching deeper. He remains skilled at imagining deaths people will discuss after leaving the theater, and his enthusiasm can make the material feel like an invitation to join an elaborate practical joke. Restraint has never been his preferred tool, and this premise would probably collapse under anyone trying to approach it that way.<\/p>\n

The film doesn’t ruin ice cream so much as expose the faith required to accept it from a stranger driving slowly through the neighborhood. Children hear the music and assume happiness has arrived. Parents hear it and assume the person outside belongs there. Roth breaks that agreement with a grin, then lets the kids clean out the freezer and destroy everything the adults thought they controlled. ICE CREAM MAN may be too shallow to become the defining nightmare its creator intends, but as a blood-soaked summer rebellion, it serves an impressively vile scoop of deliciousness.<\/p>\n

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[photo courtesy of ICONIC EVENTS RELEASING, MCT STUDIOS, THE HORROR SECTION, HEAD GEAR FILMS, METROL TECHNOLOGY, MASS APPEAL, DENTSU]<\/em><\/p>\n

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MOVIE REVIEW Ice Cream Man –      Genre: Comedy, Horror, Thriller Year Released: 2026 Runtime: 1h 26m Director(s): Eli Roth Writer(s): Eli Roth, Noah Belson Cast: Ari Millen, Benjamin Byron Davis, Eli Roth, Karen Cliche, Dylan Hawco, Sarah Abbott, Shiloh O’Reilly, Kiori Mirza Waldman, Charlie Zeltzer, Charlie Storey Where to Watch: in theaters nationwide on August […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/mailnewsgroup.com\/img\/0367\/0367489.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","iawp_total_views":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-in-theaters"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t