Friday, October 23, 2020

Ice Cream Man (1995)

An incredibly bizarre horror film. A new ice cream van arrives in town, the seller being the rather overtly strange Gregory (Clint Howard). Not long after he arrives then people start to go missing. These people, or rather their bodyparts, end up in Gregory's ice cream. The adults in town don't seem to care though but a bunch of kids who call themselves the Rocketeers (and include a kid called Tuna (JoJo Adams) who wears an obvious fat suit for some reason) know Gregory is up to no good...

A couple of detectives (Jan-Michael Vincent and Lee Majors II) are investigating the disappearances and get a hot tip (from the kids) that Gregory is behind it. They search Gregory's ice cream parlour but for some reason do not look in his ice cream van. That isn't the only rather baffling bit of "police" work they do. They go to the asylum, which Gregory was once at, and find freakish scenes of torture and horror, even having to shoot their way out. And then it seems to be all forgotten!

Trashy films like this often make little sense, this makes even less than most. The horror is rather over the top gruesome (including an ice ball inside an ice cream) and the body count is pretty high. There are also a number of intriguing cameos including David Warner as a vicar! The film is a mess, as much a mess as the cops leave Gregory's ice cream parlour in, but it is rather compelling.