Editorial · Review
Ice Cream Man (2026) Review: Is It Scary, and Where to Watch
On digital September 22, 2026 · Unrated · Directed by Eli Roth · Starring Ari Millen
By Alan Willey · · Updated
Ice Cream Man opened in US theaters on Friday, August 7, 2026, and arrives on digital rent and buy on September 22, 2026. It's an original slasher directed by Eli Roth, who co-wrote it with Noah Belson, and the first release from his new production banner, The Horror Section.
This is not a remake of the 1995 film of the same name. That one starred Clint Howard as a deranged ice cream man and built its own (albeit small) cult following. Roth's motion picture shares the basic premise of a killer behind the ice cream truck, and that's where the similarities end. It's a brand new story, not a remake.
We've seen it. It is one of the goriest films in our catalog and one of the least frightening. The kills are inventive and near-constant, but the film builds no tension around them, so the violence stops landing well before the end. The child violence goes further than a wide theatrical release usually allows, and what the film trades on is discomfort. There are no jump scares in it at all. Read our full Darkly scores on the film page.
Eli Roth's return to original horror
Ice Cream Man matters because it tells you where Roth is in his career. He built his legacy on mean, practical-effects horror: Cabin Fever in 2003, the Hostel films, and more recently the holiday slasher Thanksgiving in 2023 (a terrific slasher in the same vein as Scream). Then came Borderlands in 2024, a big-budget, star-studded video game adaptation. It was a misfire, panned by critics and audiences, and a film Roth reportedly lost control of during heavy studio reshoots.
Ice Cream Man is a course correction. It's an original, brutal horror picture with no franchise obligations. It's the first release from The Horror Section, the banner Roth founded to make unrated, no-rules genre cinema for horror fans. He's pitching this one as his most terrifying and insane film to date, an escalation past even Hostel and Thanksgiving (serious indicator of violence). He's clearly building something wider around it too, with a Thanksgiving sequel in development (will it be named "Christmas"?).
The kids are the monsters
The premise is more grim than "killer ice cream man" makes it sound. The ice cream doesn't hurt the kids who eat it. It changes them. The treats work like a contagion, a possession-style corruption that transforms the kids into bloodthirsty killers. Roth turns an idyllic sunny pool day into a kid-fueled killing spree. Children loom over sleeping parents with axes and baseball bats, and it's hard to watch precisely because children are doing it. This is graphic violence committed by children, and Roth leans all the way into the discomfort. Evil-children horror is not audience-friendly. Roth pushes it about as far as a theatrical release can go, which is part of why the film went out unrated.
How scary and how gory it actually is
The pitch was extreme and fun: a gorefest built to play loud and horrifying, marketed with the promise of "a scoop of suffering," with Ari Millen's Ice Cream Man as the calm, wordless presence at the center of it. Now that we have seen it, here is how it measures.
We scored Ice Cream Man 5.8 out of 10 overall, and the individual numbers tell the story better than the total does.
Gore is 8.2, the twelfth-highest in our catalog. The effects are practical, the kills are inventive, and they arrive almost without pause.
Fear is 1.9. The film is not frightening. It never builds tension around the violence, so there is nothing to dread between the kills. Atmosphere is 5.1 for the same reason. The sunny suburban setting is well shot but it is never made to feel like a threat.
Intensity is 6.7. Intensity measures how severe the ordeal feels rather than how much blood is on screen, and this is where a film like this normally separates itself from a plain gorefest. Ice Cream Man does not quite. The accumulation is punishing, but the film gives the violence so little weight that fatigue sets in before dread ever does.
There are zero jump scares. We counted in the theater, which makes this the first film in our catalog where that number is our own count rather than one compiled from a jump-scare database.
That adds up to a gorefest with jokes rather than a horror film, and the comedy lands more reliably than the horror does. Gorehounds and extreme-horror fans are the audience here. If you want to be scared, this is not the film.
Our full review of Ice Cream Man is on the film page, alongside the five-axis score profile.
Where to watch Ice Cream Man
Ice Cream Man opened in theaters on August 7, 2026, released by Iconic Events Releasing in 1,671 North American theaters, according to Box Office Mojo. It arrives on digital to rent or buy on Tuesday, September 22, 2026.
The Blu-ray and DVD follow on October 20, 2026, and a limited 4K UHD SteelBook on November 17, 2026, from Alliance Home Entertainment. No subscription streaming date has been announced as of September 21, 2026. We update this section the day one is announced.
Related films on Watch Darkly
- Curator Score 7.1
Thanksgiving 2023
- Fear
- 4.8
- Gore
- 7.8
- Atmosphere
- 7.3
- Intensity
- 7.3
Roth's previous slasher. A holiday-set killer with the same mean, practical streak Ice Cream Man runs on, and a tighter film than its successor.
- Curator Score 6.3
Hostel 2005
- Fear
- 3.5
- Gore
- 8.8
- Atmosphere
- 7.1
- Intensity
- 8.2
The film that made Roth famous and controversial. If you want to know how far he's willing to push gore and discomfort, start here.
- Curator Score 6.0
Cabin Fever 2002
- Fear
- 3.0
- Gore
- 7.0
- Atmosphere
- 6.0
Roth's 2003 debut, where the practical-gore reputation began. It is the clearest look at the filmmaker before the budgets got big.
Common questions
- When does Ice Cream Man come out?
- It opened in US theaters on Friday, August 7, 2026, distributed by Iconic Events in 1,671 theaters, according to Box Office Mojo. It opened two days earlier internationally, on August 5, in Belgium and Luxembourg.
- Is Ice Cream Man a remake of the 1995 film?
- No. The 1995 Ice Cream Man with Clint Howard is a separate cult film. Eli Roth's 2026 version is an original story that shares only the basic idea of a killer ice cream man.
- Ice Cream Man 1995 vs 2026: how are they different?
- They share only the image of a killer behind the ice cream truck. The 1995 Ice Cream Man is a low-budget cult horror starring Clint Howard as a deranged ice cream man, played with a campy streak. Eli Roth's 2026 film is an original, extreme slasher with a different story, in which an ice cream man's treats turn a town's children into killers. Different director, different plot, and a much harsher tone. It is not a sequel, reboot, or remake.
- What is Ice Cream Man about?
- An idyllic summer town descends into madness when an ice cream man's treats turn the local kids into bloodthirsty killers, and the adults become their victims. It's an original slasher from Eli Roth, unrelated to the 1995 film of the same name.
- Who directed it?
- Eli Roth, who co-wrote it with Noah Belson. It's the first film from The Horror Section, the production banner Roth founded for original horror.
- Who's in the cast?
- Ari Millen plays the Ice Cream Man. The cast also includes Benjamin Byron Davis, Karen Cliche, Sarah Abbott, and Dylan Hawco, along with a young ensemble.
- Is it gory?
- Extremely. We scored it 8.2 out of 10 for gore, the twelfth-highest in our catalog. The effects are practical rather than digital and the kills arrive almost without pause. The full five-axis breakdown is on the film page.
- Is Ice Cream Man scary?
- No. We scored it 1.9 out of 10 for fear, and it is one of the least frightening films in our catalog. The film never builds tension around its violence, so there is nothing to dread between the kills, and our Atmosphere score of 5.1 reflects the same problem. The sunny suburban setting is well shot but never made to feel like a threat. It is disturbing rather than frightening. If extremity is what you came for, it delivers.
- How many jump scares does Ice Cream Man have?
- Zero. We counted during a theatrical screening rather than compiling the number from a jump-scare database, which makes this the first film in our catalog with a first-party count. The fright, such as it is, comes from the content rather than from sudden sensory spikes.
- Does Ice Cream Man have a post-credits scene?
- Yes, there is a short comic sting in the same register as the rest of the film. It is a gag, not a sequel tease or a setup for anything, so you are not missing a plot beat if you skip it.
- How does Ice Cream Man end?
- We explain the ending in a spoiler-gated section on the film page, so this page stays safe for anyone who has not seen it. It is under Deep Cuts at watchdarkly.com/motion-pictures/7212/ice-cream-man-2026.
- Is Ice Cream Man too disturbing? What are the content warnings?
- It goes further with child violence than a wide theatrical release usually does, and that is the thing most likely to make someone walk out. The content warnings we have logged are child endangerment and body fluids. Our Intensity score, which measures how severe the ordeal feels rather than how bloody it is, is 6.7 out of 10. That is high but not extreme, and the reason is that the film gives its violence so little weight that it numbs more than it distresses. Viewers sensitive to graphic harm involving children should skip it.
- Is it rated R?
- No. It was released unrated. Roth founded The Horror Section to make unrated, no-rules genre films, and Ice Cream Man is the banner's first release. The film contains content beyond what an R rating would allow. Ireland's film classification office rated it 18.
- Will it be on streaming?
- Not on a subscription service yet. Ice Cream Man arrives on digital to rent or buy on September 22, 2026. As of September 21, 2026, no subscription streaming date has been announced. We update the where-to-watch section on this page the day one is.
