Eli Roth’s ‘Ice Cream Man’ Is Getting Brutal Reviews — Not A Single Positive One So Far

Here comes Eli Roth to save cinema. Roth, a director best known for his contributions to the torture-porn genre and coming off the disastrous “Borderlands,” is releasing “Ice Cream Man,” a film he describes as “the Saving Private Ryan of splatter movies.”

Eli Roth has been trying to bring “Ice Cream Man” to the screen for more than 20 years, after studios repeatedly balked at his gleefully deranged premise: a town full of kids transformed into crazed, murderous zombies. Undeterred, Roth launched his own company, The Horror Section, to finally get his labor of love out into the world. The film arrives unrated—and, if the early reviews are any indication, critics are serving up a decidedly colder reception.

The outlets that have negative things to say about “Ice Cream Man” includeVariety, IGN (3/10), ScreenRant (3/10),Next Best Picture (2/10),Flickering Myth (2/5),Collider (5/10),Deadline, Slant (2/4), San Francisco Chronicle, Dread Central (2/5),The Wrap, and AV Club. The film stands a good chance at having a score in the single digits on Rotten Tomatoes.

I’m seeing plenty of “worst of the year” mentions for “Ice Cream Man,” which doesn’t surprise me one bit. Roth has never been a critical darling and has only been more burdened by that with each passing film. “Ice Cream Man” feels like the apex of that hate—something that feels like it was a long time coming.

“‘Ice Cream Man’ follows an idyllic summer town descending into madness when an ice cream man serves kids sweet delights with horrifying results,” reads the official logline. The film stars Ari Millen (“Orphan Black”) as the titular character, alongside Roth, Benjamin Byron Davis, Karen Cliche, Dylan Hawco, Sarah Abbott, Shiloh O’Reilly, Kiori Mirza Waldman, Charlie Zeltzer, and Charlie Storey. Snoop Dogg is handling the soundtrack.

Turns out the ice cream isn’t just loaded with sugar—it apparently sends the local kids completely off the rails. The trailer, quite gleefully, might I add, escalates from childhood innocence to absolute mayhem, with children hacking off adult limbs, stitching severed heads together, and even scooping the brains out of a man who’s still very much alive. Elevated horror, this is not.

Alongside “Ice Cream Man” and the Snoop Dogg project, Roth is also set to release a sequel to “Thanksgiving”—which, oddly enough, holds the highest Rotten Tomatoes score of his career. Personally, I’ve always favored 2002’s “Cabin Fever,” which I consider his strongest work. Even “Hostel” and “Hostel II” edge it out in my book.

“Ice Cream Man” hits theaters August 7, across more than 2000 North American screens. The film is the second release under Roth’s The Horror Section banner, following the company’s launch last year.