SHANNON’S DRIVE-IN: ICE CREAM MAN – 1995

Shannon goes back to the video store and watches the cult classic, and AI free, Ice Cream Man.

A killer ice cream man is on the loose, turning the bodies of his victims into frozen treats.

Director: Norman Apstein

Writers: Sven Davison, David Dobkin

Stars: Clint Howard, Olivia Hussey, David Naughton, Jan-Michael Vincent

Shame on me: when I first saw the news Eli Roth was releasing a new movie titled Ice Cream Man, I thought it was going to be a remake of the 1995 direct-to-video cult flick. Once early reports of Roth’s movie started comparing it to last year’s hit movie Weapons, I realized hadn’t done my research and shouldn’t get pre-emptively excited for this, because I’ve never been a fan of the old Ice Cream Man and was curious if something could be done to improve it.

That box art is memorable though. Who can forget the image of Clint Howard, not giving a sinister leer towards the camera, but looking like he got caught off guard and not knowing what to do with his face in the moment. He’s offering YOU, the viewer, a bloody ice cream cone full of eyeballs and a videotape full of an over-the-top horror-comedy goodness (or at least that’s what he wants you to think).

Ice Cream Man’s plot is the thing that great video box covers are made of. It’s simple, really; neighborhood kids suspect their local frozen treat dealer is a serial killer. That’s it. We also see Clint Howard’s character Gregory Tudor’s traumatic childhood as he witnesses the local ice cream man get gunned down. As an adult, Tudor takes over the town’s ice cream business. We get flashbacks of Tudor’s time in the asylum (in soft dreamlike filters, of course). The neighborhood kids get their sugar fix from this weird guy, but have their suspicions about him. Add the most random actors available (Olivia Hussey! Jan-Michael Vincent), and you got yourself a movie.

It was on this fourth watch I began to suspect something (other than reasons why I’ve gone in for a fourth watch and I feel like I’m actually paying attention this time). This movie feels like a horror movie aimed at kids. You have your group of kids on bikes roaming the neighborhood, having adventures and trying to figure out what to do about their nemesis when every other adult doesn’t believe them (hell, there’s even a Macauley Culkin lookalike sprinkled into the group of kids). Think of them as the dollar store version of the Goonies, but they call themselves the Rocketeers (which I hope is in reference to 1991’s The Rocketeer). The movie’s also got the gross-out factor going for it with bugs and eyeballs in the ice cream. It reeks of what could be a gorier episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Adult film director Paul Norman (going by the name Norman Apstein for his first, and only, mainstream flick) intended just that; to make a crazy horror movie aimed at kids. He has also said after the release of the movie that making it more kid-friendly made it lack an audience, leading to its initial failure before gaining its cult status.

I admit, I never will understand people’s love for Ice Cream Man. It’s a movie to sell by its stupid premise and an excuse to have a psycho ice cream man running around, trying too hard with its broad humor. It’s too much of a reminder of the bottom of the bargain bin modern “so bad it’s good” ilk of movies where makers take a title and build a plot around it. The audience is supposed to laugh at its dumb premise but sometimes it just pokes at you until you’re so annoyed you want to throw it out the window.

There’s still some reasons to give it a watch though; first off, Clint Howard is just weird in this movie. He’s having a blast with this character, feeding off of the film’s willingness to get bizarro with its over-the-top attitude. Olivia Hussey’s brings on the weird too as Nurse Wharton, a former worker from Tudor’s asylum. Also, you have to appreciate Ice Cream Man’s tone in not taking itself too seriously and just being the odd, cheap production speaking to the direct-to-video aesthetic of the 1990’s. It’s a bright movie, with well-lit (but not spooky) scenes at night, with a soundtrack which sounds like it was directly lifted from TV shows aimed at pre-teens in the Nickelodeon era.

I’m not gonna say Ice Cream Man is good, but it definitely sticks out, just like the cover art of Clint Howard looking eternally confused at you from the video box. It’s nostalgia from the time of video stores, and that’s something I’m always here for.

Shannon Grant is a writer, performer, adventurer, and horned cryptid living in the wilds of upstate New York. Her work can be found in many small press anthologies such as A Guide to Useless Sidekicks, Catskill Chaos, and The Lizzie Borden House Anthology. She is currently at work on a vampire novella. When not writing, she can be found haunting drive-in movie theaters, karaoke bars, and looking for ghosts in the woods.

PLEASE NOTE: The views and opinions of the staff of Memento Mori Ink do not necessarily represent those of Memento Mori Ink or Crystal Lake Publishing, nor do the views or opinions of Crystal Lake necessarily represent those of Memento Mori Ink or its staff. Thank you for understanding.