COLD KILLER
COLD KILLER
Eli Roth on summer splatter Ice Cream Man and why every day felt like Halloween for the gore-loving children on set
WORDS: ELLIE ADDIS
ALITTLE GIRL WALKS DOWN THE STREET, CLUTCHING her mother’s decapitated head as though it were a lunchbox. The children of Bayleen Bay, a peaceful suburban town, are playing cat’s cradle with guts, jump rope with intestines, and pin the tail on the teacher with knives. Puddles of blood are smeared across the floor in the shape of snow angels. The kids aren’t alright in Eli Roth’s latest stomach-churning nightmare, Ice Cream Man. “Children in movies have been so sanitised,” he grins.
Roth admits he has a sweet tooth for summer horror, and after his previous seasonal slasher entry, Thanksgiving, he wanted to serve up another shocker anchored in a very specific time of year. “They’re generally set at a summer camp, but I wanted a different kind of summer horror film,” he says. Drawing from his own suburban childhood, and a love of late-’70s/early-’80s films, the real joy for Roth was in taking that idyllic setting, viewed through rose-coloured glasses, and tinting them blood red. “The kids are just sitting there eating an ice cream, watching their house burn down. Like it’s nothing, with no reaction whatsoever,” he laughs, amused by the absurdity.
He looked back at The Bad News Bears, The Goonies and Little Darlings. ”I really wanted it to look and feel like we’re in a ’70s or early-’80s coming-of-age movie.” Had the sinister Ice Cream Man not shown up in town, Roth says, “it would have been about this kid dealing with the bullies at school and losing the game for his team”. He compares it to his version of what The Bad News Bears “should have been”, where “all the players lose the game and then murder all the coaches”.