Eli Roth Reveals 'Ice Cream Man' Secrets Ahead of Aug. 7 Release

Q: What shocking practical effects allowed Eli Roth to transform innocent child actors into the most disturbing horror villains of the year?

The shock came from old-school prosthetics and practical gore, not CGI. Roth said *Ice Cream Man* leans heavily on physical effects to make the children’s attacks feel disturbingly real, with special makeup effects credited to Steve Newburn and Oscar winner Adrien Morot. The standout example Roth himself highlighted is a hacksaw scene in which child actor Charlie Storey appears to sever her onscreen mother’s head. Reports on the film also describe other elaborate practical set pieces: severed heads used as props in playground games, intestines turned into jump ropes, and a teacher’s brains seemingly scooped out and fed back to him in an ice-cream cone. Roth said he wanted every kill to be inventive and memorable. What made the effect more unsettling, according to Roth, was pairing that graphic practical work with young performers who could play the material straight. He said skeptics long doubted children could carry such outrageous scenes, but he praised the cast for committing to the film’s extreme tone. The result was the image he had pursued since the early 2000s: innocent-looking kids transformed into pint-sized horror villains through makeup, prosthetics, fake blood, severed-body rigs and other in-camera gore effects.

3 articles · Updated · Syfy · Aug 4

Aug. 7 is the theatrical release date for Ice Cream Man, and Eli Roth used a new interview to detail how he built the unrated horror film’s practical kills, hypnotic jingle and child-led carnage.
100-degree heat forced the production to swap real ice cream for cake frosting, while Roth said he cast kids whose parents were horror fans and whose references ranged from The Walking Dead to It.
$2 million hit Terrifier 3, which grossed more than $90 million worldwide, convinced Roth theaters would now play unrated horror widely enough for his long-gestating concept to work.
Ari Millen landed the title role after Roth rejected overtly creepy takes, aiming instead for a Mister Rogers-like presence, while Roth himself recorded the film’s deliberately irritating 'ice cream song.'