What Turned The Kids Evil In 'Ice Cream Man'? Eli Roth's Slasher, Explained
Ice Cream Man certainly isn't short on gore. Director Eli Roth's 2026 supernatural slasher is packed with severed limbs and enough blood to satisfy anyone looking for an over-the-top horror movie. But beneath all the graphic kills is a detailed mystery that reveals why an entire town's children suddenly begin murdering their parents and every other adult they come across.
Ice Cream Man begins in an ordinary suburban neighborhood where families gather at a park while children play together. Things get weird when a new ice cream man (Ari Millen) starts handing out treats to the kids. The only major exceptions are Jared (Charlie Zeltzer), who can't eat dairy because he's lactose intolerant, and Mia (Kiori Mirza Waldman), who refuses because of an eating disorder.
The same night, the ice cream truck drives through the neighborhood playing its creepy jingle. As the music filters into the houses, every child who ate some wakes up and attacks their parents. The violence is deliberately exaggerated, while the children experience the killings as if they're living inside an old-fashioned cartoon.
The nightmare spreads to the school the next day. And the kids wander around in a zombie-like state. When the ice cream truck arrives again, the children immediately turn on their teachers before police officers and firefighters arrive, only to meet the same gruesome fate. Meanwhile, a small group of unaffected children realizes that the killings aren't random.
Why Do The Kids Turn Evil In 'Ice Cream Man'?
When the unaffected group of children and teens eventually take refuge inside a church, a priest finally explains the horrifying truth. The biggest reveal in Ice Cream Man is that the children are suffering from a type of possession after eating cursed ice cream. Decades earlier, the town blamed an immigrant ice cream vendor for a string of child murders and molestations that he never committed.
According to the priest, corrupt adults covered up crimes committed by members of the church and convinced local children to falsely testify against the innocent man in court. Jared's grandfather, a prosecutor, played a major role in securing the conviction, sentencing the Ice Cream Man to spend the rest of his life behind bars. From there, the supernatural side of the story takes over.
The Ice Cream Man eventually makes a pact with a necromancer that allows his body to return after death in exchange for his soul. Armed with supernatural abilities and the cursed ice cream, he returns to the town to take revenge on the adults who destroyed his life. So the children were never his real targets. He just used them to punish those responsible for sending him to jail.
That's why the unaffected children are never killed. The only thing the possessed kids want is to force them to eat the ice cream too. Because the curse can only spread if more children eat it, which is why the Ice Cream Man keeps returning in his truck and playing the jingle that summons those already under his control. The movie also saves its biggest twist for the final act.
'Ice Cream Man' Has Become One Of Eli Roth's Most Divisive Movies
If there's one thing Ice Cream Man doesn't lack, it's ambition. The movie starts as a straightforward supernatural slasher before gradually introducing a slightly over-stuffed revenge story. Whether all of the filmmaker's ideas come together, though, depends entirely on who you ask since early reviews have skewed mostly negative.
Variety praised the film's willingness to embrace outrageous practical gore and its gleefully excessive violence, but felt the increasingly complicated mythology sometimes overwhelms what begins as a simple and effective premise. The Guardian was even less convinced, arguing that the movie piles twist upon twist until the story becomes far more convoluted than it needs to be.
But for horror fans, the movie's continuous mythological add-ons and excessive gore may be the selling point. Ice Cream Man delivers exactly the kind of over-the-top practical gore and dark humor audiences expect from Roth, while also attempting something a little more unusual beneath all the bloodshed. What isn't really in doubt is that Ice Cream Man leaves an impression.
