Ice Cream Man

Ice Cream Man (2026) is an American black comedy slasher film co-written, produced and directed by Eli Roth. It is the first feature from The Horror Section, the independent label Roth launched with Media Capital Technologies, and it was built from a script Roth wrote with Noah Belson back in 2003 — a script everyone who read it told him could never be made. The premise is a complete horror movie in nine words: an ice cream man’s treats turn kids into killers. In the seaside town of Bayleen Bay, a silent vendor (Ari Millen) hands out free cones, and every child who eats one falls under his spell. The only kid safe is Jared Mayfair (Charlie Zeltzer), the one boy on the block whose stomach cannot handle dairy. It has no connection to the 1995 Ice Cream Man with Clint Howard — same title, same evil-dessert energy, zero shared DNA.

At a glance

Release date	August 7, 2026 (US)
Director	Eli Roth
Writers	Eli Roth and Noah Belson
Starring	Ari Millen, Charlie Zeltzer, Shiloh O’Reilly, Kiori Mirza Waldman, Sarah Abbott, Benjamin Byron Davis
Runtime	86 minutes
Rating	Not rated (US)
Budget	$5.5 million
Box office	$7.6 million worldwide
Label	The Horror Section

Plot summary

It is the best sound in the world when you are nine: the truck’s tinny jingle warbling around the corner of a Bayleen Bay street, and every kid on the block levitating off the porch. The new vendor never speaks and never smiles, and his treats are free. What nobody knows is what the treats do. Children who eat them sit glassy-eyed in front of videos of the truck’s cartoon mascot, waiting. Jared Mayfair, lactose-intolerant, watches his friends go wrong from the outside — the curse of his whole summer turning, overnight, into the luckiest break of his life.

That night the truck rolls through the neighborhood after dark, and when the music plays, the treated children rise like sleepwalkers and murder their own parents. By morning Bayleen Bay is coming apart. At school, the possessed kids turn on their teachers and force-feed treats to any classmate who has not eaten. Jared, Tommy and Mia — none of them converted — barricade themselves inside while the town burns down around them. Jared’s older sister Lizzie eats a treat that was meant for him and is briefly paralyzed before forcing herself to vomit it back up. Following her instructions, the kids fall back to the local church, where a walk-in freezer in the basement is stocked with the Ice Cream Man’s supply — and a priest is hiding among the cones.

Spoiler section: the ending

The priest’s story is the town’s original sin. The Ice Cream Man is Jonathan Smiley, once a kind-hearted vendor who came to Bayleen Bay decades ago and was framed for hurting children — crimes actually committed by the town’s own priests, who needed a stranger to blame. Jared’s grandfather, an influential lawyer, ran the prosecution, and the town’s children were pressured to lie on the stand. Jonathan went to prison, where a necromancer offered him revenge on the town in exchange for his soul. The priest tells the kids the curse can be broken at the necromancer’s unmarked grave — and that is the trap. Chris is killed on the way; Tommy and Mia are force-fed treats and turned. At the grave, Jared and Lizzie stab the bodies they believe will end it, and realize too late that the bodies are their own parents, Alison and Marty. The priest was the necromancer all along, steering the children into finishing Jonathan’s revenge for him. Jonathan leaves the decimated town with the possessed children trailing behind the truck, bound for the next town. Jared and Lizzie are left standing in the wreckage, alive, and carrying all of it.

Production and behind the scenes

Roth wrote Ice Cream Man with Noah Belson in 2003, and for two decades the answer was no. His pitch, on the record: “kids love gore. They love Halloween. I want to make this the craziest movie I’ve ever done.” What changed was the business. In May 2025, Roth and Media Capital Technologies announced The Horror Section, his own label — no studio, no notes — with Ice Cream Man as its first feature. Nas is an executive producer through Mass Appeal, and Snoop Dogg contributed music: the ice cream truck is the best-connected vehicle in horror. The gore, meanwhile, is old-school and credentialed — prosthetics by Steve Newburn and Adrien Morot, the Oscar-winning Thanksgiving team, with kills staged like sick sight gags.

The film was shot in the summer of 2025 in Hamilton, Ontario, doubling for Bayleen Bay, wrapping in September, with virtual production work at Toronto’s Dark Slope Studios. Roth also cast himself as Jared’s father, Marty Mayfair — brave casting, or a man volunteering as tribute. The production’s handmade branding took a hit just before release: after Roth described animated segments as “hand-drawn,” the credits on critics’ screeners listed an AI visual effects company, Dark Half, and in August 2026 Roth confirmed generative AI had been used in select scenes. “I misspoke,” he said. In a splatter movie sold on people making real things, it became the story that outran the film.

Release and reception

Ice Cream Man opened in US theaters on August 7, 2026, through Iconic Events Releasing — unrated, by design, so the splatter could keep its promise. Made for a reported $5.5 million, it grossed $7.6 million worldwide in a short, soft theatrical run. Critics were unkind: it holds a 27% score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 34 on Metacritic. Think Horror’s review of Ice Cream Man scored it 2 out of 5 skulls — “Melts in the sun” — praising the hall-of-fame premise, Millen’s silent menace and the inventive gore while arguing the script has exactly one gear, and that gear is just more.

The film arrived on digital on September 22, 2026 — to rent or buy on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, Fandango at Home and YouTube Movies & TV. The 4K UHD, Blu-ray and DVD arrive on October 20, 2026, with a SteelBook Collector’s Edition on November 17, scratch-and-sniff stickers included, because of course they are. No subscription streaming home has been announced yet.

Legacy and influence

Whatever else it is, Ice Cream Man is a landmark of independence: the film Roth waited twenty-three years to make, released on his own label, on his own terms, with nobody to blame for the result. It belongs to the killer-kids lineage Roth name-checks himself — The Birds, Who Can Kill a Child? — and its silent, unspeaking vendor is a deliberate throwback to the Myers-and-Voorhees school of menace. But its loudest legacy may be the argument it started. A flagship practical-effects production that quietly used generative AI in its cartoon segments became a flashpoint for the whole industry’s honesty problem — proof that in modern horror, how a film is made can matter to audiences as much as what is on the screen. The truck, presumably, is still rolling toward the next town.

Trivia

The twenty-three-year-old script: Roth wrote Ice Cream Man with Noah Belson in 2003. For two decades, everyone who read it told him it couldn’t be made.
A label launch: this is the first feature from The Horror Section, the independent horror label Roth launched with Media Capital Technologies.
Rap royalty in the credits: Snoop Dogg contributed music, and Nas is an executive producer through Mass Appeal.
Shot up north: filmed in the summer of 2025 in Hamilton, Ontario — doubling for Bayleen Bay — wrapping in September, with virtual production at Toronto’s Dark Slope Studios.
A record nobody wanted: its opening-weekend per-screen average was the lowest of any wide-release film in Roth’s career — lower than The Green Inferno.
The director as tribute: Roth plays Marty Mayfair, father of the hero — he directed, co-wrote and produced the film, then cast himself in harm’s way.
Not a remake: despite the title, the film has nothing to do with the 1995 Ice Cream Man starring Clint Howard.
Stay in your seat: there is a post-credits payoff to a running gag — a decapitated man rides a Segway across the bridge and out of town. Eighty-six minutes, and they still found room for dessert.