Why I'm Not Going to Watch Ice Cream Man ( 2026 ) ?
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by Blender Dumbass
Aka: J.Y. Amihud. A Jewish by blood, multifaceted artist with experience in film-making, visual effects, programming, game development, music and more. A philosopher at heart. An activist for freedom and privacy. Anti-Paternalist. A user of Libre Software. Speaking at least 3 human languages. The writer and director of the 2023 film "Moria's Race" and the lead developer of it's game sequel "Dani's Race".
If you ever read my reviews of films like Ballerina or Weapons or stuff like that, you know that I'm the kind of guy who should very much enjoy the bullshit that Eli Roth put into the trailer of his new movie Ice Cream Man that was just released into cinema. But you can also notice that it isn't a review. I have not seen Ice Cream Man and I will never see it. This is an article about why. ↩ Reply
There are 2 reasons. ↩ Reply
One obvious, one not so much. ↩ Reply
The obvious reason, is that Eli Roth had the laziness to turn to Generative AI for this movie. Look at the comment section below the article by polygon on the matter: ↩ Reply
AceWilde said: ↩ Reply
Further evidence that he's a hack and not some horror master ... If you're even kind of thinking about paying money to see this crap, I highly recommend you check out the reddit thread from people who (unluckily) got to see this in mystery movie screenings yesterday.
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Nathan said: ↩ Reply
Yet another reason for me (a Saw fan) to keep trashing on those stupid Hostel movies.
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( Roth written and directed the Hostel movies ) ↩ Reply
gamblingaddict said: ↩ Reply
disappointing stuff. I've never had interest in the Hostel series, but between Inglorious Basterds and Thanksgiving I wanted to give this movie a chance.
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As you can see, just from these few examples that people are very unhappy. Critics are also very unhappy. The movie got very bad reviews. And the stupid thing is, this concept, on paper, had a lot of potential. ↩ Reply
Why on earth Eli Roth spread the feces of GenAI all over this movie? I wanted to like it. I wanted to recommend it. But how can you recommend something, when it's slop? ↩ Reply
Some people hate the concept. I think the concept ( the stuff in the trailer ) can be good. Is Eli Roth a good director for that? I don't know. I don't think so. He seems to be too sadistic, too edgy and too goofy for this kind of shit. ↩ Reply
The core concept of "kids killing adults" is amazing. Again, look at my review of Ballerina. When that little girl pulled the trigger I jumped with excitement. Seeing a little girl chop off a head in a brutal fashion, like is seen in the trailer for Ice Cream Man, also makes my monkey brain very happy for some reason. ↩ Reply
But for this to work, there should be Corruption of the Audience. The story should be twisted in such a way, that this act of violence is a cathartic act of heroism, or something. But based on the trailer, and this is my second problem with the movie, the evil kids are just that. Evil kids. ↩ Reply
This implies ( in the hands of Eli Roth especially ) that some of those evil kids would die on screen. I don't know, for sure, if they will. I'm not going to watch the film to find out. But given the nature of Eli's sadism, and some setups in the trailer, I can already expect some of that to happen. ↩ Reply
And believe me, I already seen enough of that shit in The House That Jack Built by Lars Von Trier and other movies before that, like The Children by Tom Shankland from 2008, or even the 1993 Macaulay Culkin film The Good Son by Joseph Ruben which I also thought was a wasted potential. ↩ Reply
Okay in The House That Jack Built the kids aren't evil. But the point stands. Frankly I don't care. I don't even want to re-watch Jaws for that same reason. And I was very reluctant to re-watch Schindler's List for that same reason. Good I was on pills when I saw it for the last time. I was loopy enough to get through it. ↩ Reply
Those other films The Children and The Good Son are good attempts at corrupting the audience into wanting children to die. The Children is even roughly speaking the same kind of movie as the stuff I saw in the trailer of Ice Cream Man. It is about kids getting sick with homicidal virus. But unlike the trailer for Ice Cream Man, The Children actually takes this whole thing seriously. And that makes the movie actually kind of good. Even though I wouldn't watch it again. ↩ Reply
In my opinion a movie that was compared to Ice Cream Man by critics Weapons is a much better example of this shit done right. ↩ Reply
Spoiler alert, in Weapons we get to see a bunch of kids brutally murder an adult. But in Weapons it is completely justified by the plot of the movie. The movie builds this adult as the evilest of all evil, for so long, that when the kids actually snap into the killing mode on her ( it's an evil witch ) you feel so much catharsis that your dopamine receptors can explode from overdose. ↩ Reply
And on top of that, Weapons is smart enough to never show a kid die. There is tension that it might happen. There is one kid that goes through a lot of very tough shit. But not a single one of them ever dies. And that makes the movie so much more rewatchable. ↩ Reply
That fucking shot. A little girl cutting her mother's head off with a saw blade. Bad shit crazy visual. Completely lost potential. Based on the trailer ( and I don't expect there to be anything deeper than that ) the girl bought the ice-cream, got the homicide virus and killed her mom. Okay... disturbing. Fine... So? ↩ Reply
In the end of the trailer you see that there are 2 groups of kids. Good ones and evil ones. Therefor the stakes are: good kids should kill the evil ones. Or some shit like that. Wasted potential. ↩ Reply
What if instead there was something like this. The little girl, or perhaps all of those kids in town, were fucking abused by their parents all the time. Not sexually abused. I mean, with Eli Roth anything is possible. But I mean, they were treated badly enough that you would expect some retaliation from the kids. ↩ Reply
Then comes the Ice Cream Man. And gives kids the magical drug that sets their mind into revenge mode. Not homicidal maniac mode. Revenge mode. And therefor makes all those killings that those kids are doing, utterly fucking satisfying. It cold be such a great dopamine rush of a movie. It could be such a great corruption of the audience. But no... Eli Roth is apparently too lazy to do something this good. ↩ Reply
How do I know? Well he used AI. How can a filmmaker be more lazy than that? ↩ Reply
Happy Hacking!!! ↩ Reply
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