Review: It's nonstop gore (and a bit of brain freeze) in Eli Roth's splatter-happy 'Ice Cream Man'

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Set us as preferred The kid in the candy shop is Eli Roth with a gore budget and in the “Hostel” director’s latest bloody romp, “Ice Cream Man,” there’s a decidedly childlike giddiness from behind the camera to accompany the sicko suburban carnage depicted onscreen.Where others might view a “Village of the Damned” scenario as dread-inducing, Roth hears the bell for recess.That doesn’t necessarily translate to a successful film.

Little things like style, narrative command and character still matter, and Roth, who wrote “Ice Cream Man” with Noah Belson and even gives himself a role, is decidedly more of a smart-ass vaudevillian than a skilled filmmaker.(“Thanksgiving” was better as an impish sideshow teased as a trailer in “Grindhouse” than as a standalone feature years later.) And while that same belief in the lasting entertainment value of jokey splat-itude gives “Ice Cream Man” its occasional well-churned moments, it eventually undercuts Roth’s own semi-worthy bid to rattle us as the best horror movies can.With its sunny elevator-music-scored opening of cheery park scenes and leafy residential neighborhoods, “Ice Cream Man” sets itself up, not unappealingly, like a Norman Rockwell painting asking to be vandalized.

Next comes the arrival of a tinkling blue ice cream truck manned by an eerily silent, smiling, wraith-like purveyor (Ari Millen) with a John Waters mustache.He hands out his goodies free of charge, and the town’s children converge excitedly, then head home with colorfully smeared faces and a peculiarly quiet demeanor — except for easily bullied Jared (Charlie Zeltzer), who’s lactose intolerant and nobody’s friend anyway, after losing the ballgame for his team.

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