Ice Cream Man: The Gore Is Fictional. The AI Problem Isn’t.
Film & TV14 October 2026
AuthorCharlie Kendellen
PhotosTHE HORROR SECTION
Eli Roth’s Ice Cream Man serves up gore and another generative AI controversy.
E
li Roth is no stranger to controversy. He has faced allegations of misogyny, Zionism, and worst of all – making shitty films. His latest Ice Cream Man, a wholly unserious splatter horror, is trashy, gory, and unsurprisingly problematic.
I am a defender of low-brow films, especially horror. Yet the films of Eli Roth feel try-hard for try-hard’s sake. He is known for Cabin Fever (2002), Hostel (2005), The Green Inferno (2013), and Thanksgiving (2023) – each as divisive as the one before it. Ice Cream Man is set in an idyllic town that descends into utter madness and depravity when an ice cream man serves children sweet treats with horrifying results.
Eli Roth has admitted to using AI in a handful of short sequences in the film, despite previously claiming that he used his background in animation and a team of animators to bring his vision to life organically. This revelation has resulted in boycotts and stirred up some obvious controversy. In 2024, Late Night With the Devil similarly garnered controversy for its usage of generative AI images.
There is much to be said about the use of generative AI in Hollywood and the ethics of using it when there is a shortage of jobs, the environmental impact, etc. – you’ve heard it all before. And regardless of your stance on AI as a tool, generative AI has no place in an industry that owes itself to human creativity.
The film uses the same style of vibrant colours seen in the likes of the Terrifier franchise, which undeniably makes the litres of blood and gore pop. It also uses the violent children trope as seen in last year’s hit horror Weapons. The depiction of children gone berserk is a nice framework that can easily be used to apply metaphors of children’s minds being corrupted by social media or the like, but I think Roth just wanted to unabashedly shock the audience with sequences of children committing violent acts of torture and mutilation.
As well-known in the industry as Roth has come to be, his latest has been mostly loathed by those who’ve seen it, whether that be due to his amateurish stab at a done-to-death narrative, or his admission to using generative AI knowing its impact on the filmic landscape today.
