Eli Roth Teases Nasty 'Ice Cream Man' Scene [Exclusive]

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Eli Roth (Cabin Fever, Thanksgiving) says his next film, Ice Cream Man, is the most extreme project of his career.

Set for release this year, the film follows an idyllic summer town descending into madness when an ice cream man (Ari Millen) serves kids sweet delights with horrifying results.

While speaking with Dread Central about the new 4K restoration of Cabin Fever, Roth briefly shifted gears and offered a glimpse at just how far his upcoming film goes.

The director said he wanted to go back to his roots and make a movie that leaves people wondering how someone could even make it. “I have a scene where the kids are having fun, so they’re playing jump rope with guts and tetherball with a head,” Roth said.

The movie, he explained, initially presents itself as something akin to a late ’70s or early ’80s kids comedy like Bad News Bears, before it takes a hard left. “You think you’re in some normal coming-of-age kids movie,” Roth said. “And then it turns. It turns into Saving Private Ryan, but with kids just going nuts.” He also described the film as The Birds, but with children.

The production, which wrapped last September, involved what Roth described as 100 children covered in blood, wielding prop weapons, and terrorizing their school after eating the ice cream, while a small group of kids who avoided it attempt to escape. Roth recalled having limited shooting windows and unpredictable interruptions, including one take that stalled when a six-year-old raised his hand mid-action because his shoe was untied.

Still, he pushed back on the long-standing advice to avoid working with children altogether. “Everyone says don’t work with kids,” Roth said. “But when kids are covered in blood with fake axes, they love it. For them, it was like Christmas.”

Even as the film aims to push beyond the usual limits of horror, Roth said the kids were unfazed by the gore and, in many cases, thrilled by it. “They’d go, ‘Sir, would you like me to have more blood?’” Roth laughed. “And I’d say, ‘Would you like more blood?’ And they’d say, ‘I really would.’”

Ice Cream Man is currently slated for release in 2026 via Roth’s The Horror Section.