If you ever read my reviews of films like [Ballerina](/reviews/balerina_2025_did_what_spy_kids_should_have_but_couldn_t) or [Weapons](/reviews/weapons_2025_should_be_nominated_for_best_picture) 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.

There are 2 reasons.

One obvious, one not so much.

The obvious reason, is that Eli Roth had the laziness to turn to [Generative AI for this movie](https://www.polygon.com/eli-roth-ice-cream-man-generative-ai-confirmed/). Look at the comment section below the article by *polygon* on the matter:

*AceWilde* said:

> 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.

*Nathan* said:

> Yet another reason for me (a Saw fan) to keep trashing on those stupid Hostel movies.

( Roth written and directed the *Hostel* movies )

*gamblingaddict* said:

> 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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

But for this to work, there should be [Corruption of the Audience](/articles/examples_of_films__corrupting_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.

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. 

And believe me, I already seen enough of that shit in [The House That Jack Built](/reviews/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.

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](/reviews/schindler_s_list_1993_and_how_spielberg_was_perfect_to_tell_this_story) 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.

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.

In my opinion a movie that was compared to *Ice Cream Man* by critics [Weapons](/reviews/weapons_2025_should_be_nominated_for_best_picture) is a much better example of this shit done right.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

How do I know? Well he used AI. How can a filmmaker be more lazy than that?

**Happy Hacking!!!**