Eli Roth Reveals How Ice Cream Man Became Total Insanity

The horror filmmaker discusses the movie’s relentless gore, its young cast, and classic horror influences.

Eli Roth has spent more than two decades turning familiar places into nightmares. “Cabin Fever” made a remote getaway the site of a flesh-eating outbreak, while “Hostel” transformed a European vacation into a brutal trap. Now, the filmmaker is targeting another symbol of childhood comfort: the neighborhood ice cream truck.

“ICE CREAM MAN” arrives in theaters nationwide on August 7, 2026. Roth directed the horror film and co-wrote the screenplay with Noah Belson from a story by Roth.

The movie follows an idyllic summer town that descends into madness after an ice cream man serves children sweet treats with horrifying results.

Ari Millen leads the cast alongside Benjamin Byron Davis, Eli Roth, Karen Cliche, Dylan Hawco, Sarah Abbott, Shiloh O’Reilly, Kiori Mirza Waldman, Charlie Zeltzer, and Charlie Storey.

During my interview with Roth, he opened up about the movie’s graphic kills, practical effects, and ambitious production. He also discussed directing its large group of young actors and revealed the horror project he wants to make with Snoop Dogg.

When I admitted that my eyes were covered during several scenes, Roth considered it the ultimate compliment. “The best compliment someone could say about a horror movie is, ‘I couldn’t watch it,’” Roth told me.

Eli Roth Returns to His Extreme Horror Roots

Roth first broke through as a filmmaker with “Cabin Fever,” which established his taste for body horror, practical effects, and pitch-black humor. He pushed those elements even further with “Hostel” and “Hostel: Part II,” making him one of the defining voices of extreme American horror during the 2000s.

His filmography later expanded with “The Green Inferno,” “Knock Knock,” and “Thanksgiving,” the feature-length realization of the fake trailer he created for “Grindhouse.” Roth has also stepped outside the genre to direct “Death Wish,” the family fantasy “The House with a Clock in Its Walls,” the video game adaptation “Borderlands,” and the shark documentary “Fin.”

As an actor, he memorably played Donny “The Bear Jew” Donowitz in Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds.”

However, “ICE CREAM MAN” brings Roth directly back to the outrageous, splatter-driven filmmaking that made him a major name in horror. According to Roth, the only thing limiting what audiences see was the movie’s budget. “It’s purely a budgetary question,” Roth said. “You know, we’re doing it low budget, so we’re trying to pack in as much as we can.”

Roth praised the artists who helped bring the movie’s increasingly gruesome ideas to life, including Steve Newburn and his team at Applied Arts, Adrien Morot, Kathy Tse, and visual effects artist Josh Petrino. “Steve and his team in Toronto really just kept pushing it and pushing it and pushing it,” Roth said. “And we had an artist named Josh Petrino who helped us with some digital effects, fixes, and cleanup.”

Holding back was never part of Roth’s plan.

“But I want to show everything,” he explained. “I mean, I don’t make a movie like ‘ICE CREAM MAN’ to hold back. So it’s really just about budget. I’ll get an idea, and we just go for it and do the best we can with it.”

Ice Cream Man’s Violence Becomes Part of the Fun

Roth wanted the violence to build until audiences stopped resisting the movie’s madness and began laughing alongside it.

“I want it to just be one thing after another, after another,” Roth said. “You just couldn’t believe what you were watching. And it just doesn’t stop.”

According to Roth, the movie’s escalating violence eventually creates an unusual reaction. The initial shock begins to transform into laughter because of how much fun the children appear to be having. “At a certain point, you give over to the violence,” Roth explained. “At first, it’s so shocking what you’re seeing. And then it’s just like, you can’t believe it, and then you start laughing.”

Although the children commit horrifying acts, Roth does not consider them truly evil. Instead, he views them as innocent kids who have been manipulated and are enjoying the chaos without fully understanding it.

“They’re not like evil kids,” Roth said. “They’ve been manipulated into doing this, but it’s Christmas morning for them.” That enthusiasm also carried over to the set. Roth said the children loved Halloween, dressing like monsters, and getting covered in fake blood. Their parents were also horror fans who embraced the production’s wild ideas.

“All the parents were there. All the parents are horror fans,” Roth recalled. “They were like, ‘My daughter would love a fake head. Can you give her a fake head?”

The families were equally excited about the possibility of the children being drenched in blood. “You can cover my kid in blood. She’d love it,” Roth recalled one parent telling him.

Despite the difficult production, Roth said the unusual atmosphere helped everyone enjoy the experience. “It was a really, really fun time doing it,” he said. “Tough shoot, but we got it.”

Roth Directed the Young Cast Like Adult Stars

Despite the movie’s outrageous premise, Roth wanted believable performances from the young cast. He avoided talking down to them and asked whether they wanted to receive the same direction he gives adult actors.

“I asked them, I said, ‘Do you want me to direct you like children or like adults?’” Roth recalled. “And they said, ‘No, adults. Don’t talk to us like kids.’”

Roth agreed to treat them with the same level of respect as some of the biggest stars he has directed. “I said, ‘OK, same way I direct Ana de Armas, Cate Blanchett, Jack Black, I’m going to talk to you guys,’” Roth said.

That approach allowed Roth and the actors to have serious conversations about their characters, emotional reactions, and whether each scene felt believable. “We could have real discussions and go, ‘Does this feel real? What would you do in this moment? How about that? Did that feel good?” he explained.

However, Roth also kept the atmosphere playful after capturing what he needed. He occasionally asked the children to perform scenes using Peppa Pig-style voices without warning the rest of the cast.

“I would say to Kiori, the girl, ‘OK, do this one Peppa Pig, like full Peppa Pig,’ then not tell the other guys,” Roth said.

The other actors eventually joined her while Roth allowed the unexpected version of the scene to continue. “I wouldn’t yell cut. I’d let them finish the scene,” he said. “And then we cut, and they’re laughing so hard.”

Those playful takes reminded the cast that they could remain focused without losing the fun of making a horror movie.

“It lets them know we’re here to do a good job, we’re here to work, but we can still have fun too,” Roth said. “If you get the scene and you do it, you let the kids have a silly take, and they go crazy. They love it.”

Real Locations Created a Full “Kid-Pocalypse”

One of the elements that immediately stood out to me was the movie’s immersive setting. When I asked whether the school and surrounding town were real, Roth confirmed that the production relied almost entirely on practical locations.

“We’re shooting 100% locations,” Roth said. “We’re in houses, we’re in an elementary school, we’re in towns. I mean, we just went for it.”

That decision helped give “ICE CREAM MAN” a much larger scale despite its limited budget. “The only way for this to feel real, like a full kid-pocalypse, is if you just do it,” Roth explained.

The production brought together 100 children and 20 stunt performers alongside fake blood, smoke machines, and severed body parts. “We had 100 children, 20 stunt people, fake blood, smoke machines, body parts,” Roth said. “I mean, it was total insanity.”

Roth compared the scale and intensity he wanted to the opening battle sequence from Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan.”

“I wanted it to feel like that beginning of ‘Saving Private Ryan,’ but with kids,” he said.

Another major inspiration came from Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds,” particularly the sequence involving children fleeing their school while birds attack from every direction. “When you watch ‘The Birds’ and those kids are running, and the birds are attacking them, that school attack in ‘The Birds’ is unbelievable,” Roth said. “That was one of the biggest inspirations for me.”

Roth shot the action with cameras moving alongside the children while performers surrounded them on every side. Pulling off that kind of controlled chaos required the experience he gained throughout his career. “This is my 10th movie, and it took a lot of those 10,000 hours of preparation to know how to pull it off,” Roth said.

Despite that preparation, Roth admitted that making a movie on this scale still required a leap of faith. “It’s a faith-based system,” he said. “You just hope to God it works out. And thankfully it did.”

Eli Roth Reveals His Planned Snoop Dogg Movie

Roth already has another outrageous horror concept in mind after “ICE CREAM MAN.”

When I asked him about his next theatrical priority as a director, Roth revealed he wants to collaborate with Snoop Dogg on a haunted-house movie. “I want to do a haunted house movie with Snoop Dogg called ‘Don’t Go in That House, Bitch,’” Roth said.

Roth’s wording makes the project an ambition rather than a confirmed production. However, the tease offers a clear look at the type of theatrical horror he hopes to pursue next: a simple genre hook, an unforgettable title, and a collaborator who could bring a completely different energy to a haunted house story.

Before then, audiences can experience Roth’s blood-soaked “kid-pocalypse” when “ICE CREAM MAN” opens in theaters nationwide on August 7.

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