Ice Cream Man

Yep, there are two different covers.
It doesn't matter which one you get,
either way Clint Howard is on the cover.

Stats
FOUND AT: Blockbuster
PRICE: $1.99 (Rental Fee)
DIRECTOR: Paul Normal (as Norman Apstein)
SCREENPLAY: Sven Davison and David Dobkin
STARRING: Clint Howard, a buncha child slaves
RATING: R for the presence of Clint Howard.
YEAR: 1995
AVAILABILITY: Only on VHS. What the hell is that?!
IMDB FUN FACT!:
"This movie was sponsored in part by the Converse shoe company.
Many characters wear Converse shoes, especially the classic
Chuck Taylor All-Stars. There is also an extraordinary number
of shots of shoes throughout the entire film."
HILARIOUS REVIEW:
(both from Amazon.com)

" i think it's the best and awesome, October 15, 2002

i loved ice cream man i think it's a cool good movie"

AND

" great effects, November 4, 2001

Rated R for Gore thats it. It is tottally bloody. Such as the Ice cream man putting a head on a cone. His origanal name is Greogry and he trys to follow the footsteps of the old icecream man and hes not about to give up. He's funny and he is also seen in my Dog Skip. "

Let me start off by telling you that this is a horror movie, and knowing that, the title will tell you everything about the movie. Clint Howard (Ron Howard's brother, who has a cameo in almost all of Ritchie Cunningham's films) is in a starring role... as an ice cream man. Well, it's a step down from "Nasa Guy #7 in "Apollo 13". But thankfully for Clint, he's got a talented director: Paul Norman (credited as Norman Apstein), who played one of the village children in "Village of the Damned." What's he been doing since? Directing porno flicks. And lots of them. Aside from writing and directing "Edward Penishands," he was fight choreographer for "The Erotic Adventures of the Three Musketeers" and acted in "Stick it in the Rear 2." I think I'd rather talk about the films of Paul Norman and giggle as I see the hilarious porno flick titles than review this movie (his only non porn-flick). Now, you know your movie is screwed when you hire a porn director to direct. And no, I did not make any of those titles up. Except "Apollo 13."

I found the previews preceding the movie to be very interesting. First, we have "Skinner," a sick-ass slasher flick starring Ted Raimi as the title character, who cuts up girls for no apparent reason. It co-stars former porn actress Tracy Lords (we can assume there's nudity... even more reason to see it) and Ricki Lake (HA!). Yes, I guess Ted Raimi, the Clint Howard of Sam Raimi (director of "Evil Dead." Wait, too obscure for you? Ok, he directed "Spider-Man," too) flicks, ironically enough, gets to slash up Ricki Lake... after her talk show, who wouldn't want to? And then there's "Floundering," which looked to be an actually entertaining (meaning in the way it was meant to be enjoyed) movie... some social comedy about post-riot LA... John Cusack's in it! All of these are released by Apix video... that's right, the same company that released Uncle Sam on video. I had a feeling it was them.

Ok, anyway, let's get to the movie. It starts out with a flashback in what can only be the 1950s. A mob hit is carried out on an ice cream truck and the man inside (think Sonny Corleone from "The Godfather," but with an ice cream man). The ice cream man is left swimming in a pool of his own blood as people gather around to see. A kid sits down on the curb, pries a Push-Up® (is that an anachronism? I'm not sure.) from his cold, dead hands, and begins to eat. His mother arrives and he says to her, "Who's gonna bring the ice cream?" In case it's not incredibly obvious, this kid's the title character. As the scene ended I saw the credit "Lee Majors II," (he plays a cop here) and hoped that The Six Million Dollar Man (not Ted Dibiase) would be kicking Clint Howard ass... I was once again disappointed, but that goes without saying when it comes to these movies. But Lee Majors II is the son of Lee Majors (and has played the part of the Six Million Dollar Man a couple times), so it's all good, I guess.

No, that's not McCauley Culkin. That's "Small Paul.
Yep, I feel like beating the crap out of him, too.

Jump forward to the present (the year doesn't matter). The Ice Cream Man comes and kids get ice cream. One kid (who's just barely an inconsequential character) takes money from his mom's wallet to pay. When we're shown the inside of the truck, and we see why it's always best to order something that's pre-wrapped and not the scooped cone stuff: the drums are have roaches and mice swimming in melting ice cream. After the kids get ice cream, we cut to the playground. A nerdy kid is reading a book about The Pied Piper. You know, that guy who gets rid of all the rats in a town and then drowns the children as his payment... after that exterminators decided to form unions. As a trash picker in the park approaches the kid (cue dramatic music... seriously) the kid's friends appear. In addition to the nerdy kid, "Small Paul," you got Johnny Spodak, who is way too young to look like a grunge rocker (and has hair that is a mix of A Flock of Seagulls and generic grunge hair), I think, Heather Langley, the obligatory girl, and Tuna Cassera, the obligatory fat kid, who is, in reality, a skinny kid with pillows in his shirt... seriously. Together they are The Rocketeers, kinda like The Goonies, but without a lick of personality. From this point on, this movie becomes "The Goonies" meets "Psycho." And no, not in the good way. The kids aren't funny, and the killer isn't creepy. To show that Chunk... err... Tuna, is a fat kid (as if the pillows didn't make it obvious), he drops his corn dog-looking ice cream on the ground, picks it up and proceeds to eat it. Five second rule doesn't count for ice cream, kiddo. Hee-hee! He's going to get a disease! Hilarious fat kid humor. It just barely beats out the fat kid farting for no reason in "Snow Day."

After the elderly garbage picker approaches the children and talks to them and all of them run away for no reason. As the kid who robbed his mother at the beginning sits on a swing, the Ice Cream man (his real name's Greg... let's call him that from now on) has a flashback of a syringe pumping day glo green ooze into his brain from seeing the garbage picker's spear stick. The kid walks up to him and asks if he's ok. "Ice cream man feels happy... very very happy," he replies as he grabs his knife. Here's where we assume that he just killed that kid, cause we immediately cut to the other kids running home. Here is where we meet Heather's Dad, Father Langley (he's a priest, minister, something), played by the guy who played the scientist in "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze." Let's assume they each go to their respective homes.

Whee! Child molesters!

Meanwhile, Greg parks his truck and pulls out a body bag. A dog comes and barks at him. He grabs a Push-Up® and... pushes up. A knife pops out. I don't think I need to point out the ridiculousness of using a Push-Up® as a deadly weapon or how obvious it is that that dog is going to die. Cut to the owner of the dog looking out the window, wondering where her dog, "Binky," is. Suddenly Greg pops up in front of her. This woman is revealed to be Nurse Warden, the woman who looks after Greg. I can't tell if Greg's a man-child or not, cause he acts out of character constantly. Then we cut to Greg with an anguished look on his face as he puts a dead dog corpse in a grinder. PETA will have a fit!

Cut to meatloaf on a dinner table. Heh, that's actually kinda funny. Rocketeer Johnny runs in as his adult brother, a tough guy-wannabe cop talks about wanting to be a cop. The brother then proceeds to make fun of Tuna's name, for no reason other than to establish him as an asshole who's obviously going to die. Next they get a phone call. The kid who robbed his mother, named Roger Smith (just like the guy in "The Big O!" Maybe this is a prelude or something) is missing. Johnny's mother immediately tells Johnny that he's not allowed to go out anymore. Jeez, that's a bit rushed. Wait until they find the corpse, lady. He could have just gone to a late night kegger or something.

The next morning, Greg is asleep in his front lawn (if it can be called a lawn) amongst spinning flower lawn ornaments. This is Greg's lawn, and he takes good care of it. Seriously. Anyway, he dreams about being in a white room, with a clown running around and saying "Happy Happy Happy!" while a nurse feeds him mashed potatoes. Or was it ice cream? I'm not sure. Then Nurse Warden wakes him up, and pointless chatter ensues.

Later, the Asshole Brother drops the four kids off at the movies as he makes fun of Tuna. This brother is no Josh Brolin. Because they're too young to see whatever erotic thriller they wanted to see, they head over to Tuna's dad's office, where he is the PRESIDENT (as denoted by his desk placard in all caps) of something. After he gets the kids to stop harassing him, he gets a phone call from a woman in bed asking for sex... yep, not his wife.

Meanwhile, Greg is crusin' for potential customers when the police stop him and ask him about a missing kid. After he says no, they tell him to keep his eyes open for "anything weird." How vague. Then one of them asks for a scoop or two of rocky road. We're shown the inside of the truck again, where there are cans of organs. Greg takes an eyeball, scoops the insides of it out, and puts the insides on top of the scoop, and covers it by rubbing it with his bare hands. That's so incredibly disgusting... use gloves, you sick fuck. Who knows where those hands have been? Anyway, Roger Smith's Mom (who looks a lot like Molly Shannon) approaches and one of the cops offers her ice cream. Great, the woman's son has been probably brutally murdered, and he thinks a scoop of vanilla swirl will fix things? We close up on the cop's mouth, which is moving around the eyeball with his tongue... heh. Now, I'm no ice cream expert, but I don't think rocky road has big slimy eyeball-like chunks in it. When I get a chunk of something that doesn't melt in my mouth, I'd take it out and look at it, and then strangle the ice cream man.

Later, Greg's serving ice cream to the masses. An attractive woman (the same one that's screwing Tuna's Dad) skips in front of the line and asks for some HARD back to be delivered to her house. Yep, she said it exactly like that. HARD back. Let's remember that this was directed by a porn director. After the woman, the Rocketeers order, and change their orders a couple times, and Greg gets all snotty about it. Once again, another reason to hit him. As if the eyeball thing isn't enough. Then Greg has another flashback to his sanitarium (what else could it be?) days. One of the doctors is saying "No bad days, Gregory. Only happy, happy, happy days!" I laughed.

Later, Heather goes home to find her mother babbling to herself incoherently. No, I can't explain it, nor does the movie even attempt to. Maybe there was a whole big Exorcist-like subplot in there that was cut out for pacing reasons. Well, looks like they forgot a scene. Silly editors. We then cut to the other three kids talking about how weird Heather has been acting lately. Small Paul, the geeky one, decides to get more ice cream. Jesus, are human organs that addictive? He approaches Greg behind a building (yeah, real safe, kid), who is dancing like a maniac for no apparent reason. They talk for a while, and then when Greg goes inside his truck to get Small Paul some butter ripple & intestine, a bloody spear falls out of the truck. Uh-oh! I'm on the edge of my seat. Then Tuna arrives (y'know, I don't know why he's there... hurm) just in time to see Greg pull Small Paul in his truck. As Tuna runs away, Greg breaks character by shouting "You little turds are gonna have to learn that you can't run from the Ice Cream Man! I know where you live!"

Tuna later finds that missing kid Roger Smith. It is revealed that Greg killed the trash collector and not Roger. Well, that's good, I guess. When he arrives home, Tuna tries to inform his dad, The PRESIDENT, of what happened, and the bastard won't listen. As PRESIDENT steps outside, he sees Greg drive by at the same time (at night, how inconspicuous), and says, "What the hell is that Ice Cream Dork doing out!" Yep, I think it's obvious he's gonna die. The next day, Tuna's mom sees Tuna's messy shoes on the porch and yells at him. Now, how dirty are the shoes? Worms are crawling all over and ice cream is smeared on the shoes. Yep, she doesn't find that peculiar at all. Seems like this town is populated by "Friday the 13th" and "Halloween" survivors and their children. Of all the people that shouldn't breed....

This is what happens when you don't tip the pizza guy.
He takes a picture of your disgusting shoes.

Tuna and his mom then head to the supermarket to buy food for mother's peanuckle game. There, Greg notices Tuna's gay white tennis shoes and chases him throughout the store. Tuna trips on a metal stand with towels on it, no one notices. Tuna gets under a cart, no one notices, especially not the woman pushing it, even though he's in plain sight. Greg, on the other hand, bumps into a woman, who asks him for his opinion of the lipstick she's applying to herself. Yep, she's just opening lipstick and putting it on. Jeez. Greg replies "Cherry syrup looks good on you. Get a dozen." Now, I'm no woman, but Clint Howard (or any lookalike) is the last person I'd ask for an opinion on lipstick. At the end of this riveting chase scene that Tuna could have ended by screaming "Help!" he hides in a meat locker. After he is found by supermarket staff, he tells his mom of Greg's murder of Small Paul. I really must mention how much I hate that name.

That skinny kid in the big sweater is Tuna. In front of him
is Clint Howard's feet.

Later, the police arrive at Greg's Ice Cream factory with a search warrant. The cops search throughout for hollows, knocking over and breaking everything in sight. You sure these guys are cops? "We have ways of making you talk, mein fruind." It's obvious that they aren't since they neglect to check Greg's ice cream truck. Dumbasses. We are shown the secret room where Small Paul is being kept. Yep, those cops missed a hollow. After the police leave, Greg pulls Small Paul out of his crawlspace and puts him on the counter near a vat with a spinning blade in it. When the police were investigating, Greg tells them that he uses it to chop nuts. Once again, we think we're going to see some child murder when we think he's about to put Small Paul in the giant blending vat, but no... Greg just offers him ice cream, which is oozing over Greg's hand... eww. Then he tells him that he can't tell anyone about something... sorry if that's confusing, I didn't specify what the hell that meant my notes. Some of it is barely readable, actually.

Cut to Reverend Langley's church. Once he finishes blabbing on about God and how everyone is going to hell, the remaining Rocketeers meet Roger and tell him that there might be an open spot for him in their little group. Yep, they don't seemed worried at all about Small Paul's "death." A bit later, while in Heather's room, the three decide to film Greg's shenanigans to get proof, since anyone over 12 is a fucking moron.

Why do any of them need bunkbeds? They're all only children,
except the kid with the 30 year old Asshole Cop Brother.

At night, the kids, in black clothes and berets, with rockets on the front of their bikes, follow Greg to the cemetery, where he plants ice cream cones in the ground around the grave of the dead ice cream man from the beginning, known as Fudge Ripple, a.k.a. "Ice Cream King," as he talks to him. At some point it's revealed (not that it's really important) that Mr. Ripple dealt drugs or something, thereby provoking the mob hit somehow. Once Greg leaves, the kids inspect the gravesite and see the cones planted in the ground. Heather decides to go alone and follow him as he goes to the house of the slutty woman that ordered some HARD back. As he gets seduced, Heather takes pictures of the inside of the truck. One of the kids (Tuna, I think) gets caught by the cops. When caught, he launches his rocket into the car. It doesn't explode, unfortunately. I wonder if the Six Million Dollar Man can survive an explosion... Anyway, Heather later gets the photos developed, and Johnny''s asshole wannabe cop brother sees that they used his camera and takes the ticket to pick it up.

The second obviously phallic
object on this web site.

Meanwhile, Greg approaches the slutty woman's house and parks behind the car parked in the driveway. Tuna's dad, PRESIDENT, walks out and sees the truck in the way. He goes to yell at the ice cream man, and the back doors open and he uses a waffle iron on PRESIDENT's face. Seconds later, Greg enters the house, with PRESIDENT's head on a giant cone. The woman is in lingerie, with her back to him. She sees the head, screams, and then Greg knifes her. What is the point of that? All she did was scream. These murders make less and less sense each time. Then we cut to asshole cop brother and his girlfriend at the photo place they see the photos of him getting some backdoor action, and then some photos of body parts and bloody ice cream drums.

The only woman who finds Clint Howard
attractive, and she has all her teeth.

Then we jump back to the ice cream factory. Greg is mixing ice cream in the vat that he said was for chopping nuts... nope, I don't know why he lied, either. He invites Small Paul to help out... is he going to throw him in? Nope. For some odd reason Small Paul's glasses are missing, not that it matters much. While Small Paul is helping, Greg sifts out things that don't belong in ice cream (from the dead bodies he used as ingredients). There we see random unidentifiable objects, a ring, earrings, and A DIAPHRAGM. That's too damn funny.

The two plainclothes cops (Lee Majors II being one of them) head over to the local insane asylum, where they meet the doctor from Greg's flashbacks. Y'know, the ""No bad days, Gregory. Only happy, happy, happy days!" guy. "We believe in compassion," the doctor says before screaming "SHUT UP!" at a nearby screaming patient. Heh. He then says he should go treat this screaming person and then shouts, "This is not a happy day!" followed by laugher. This is just bizarre. The cops follow, revealing the rest of the asylum to be littered with graffiti. Then the doctor summons all the patients, who slowly surround the two cops. They then try to escape, and the patients slowly follow. It's a lot like the "Night of the Living Dead" remake, where one can just outrun them. After some punching and a bit of shooting, the cops escape. Boy, I'd hate to have to explain that...
"Why did you shoot the crazy people?"
"They were... walking at me, sir."
"My God... those monsters."

Meanwhile, the three kids, on their bikes, are followed by Greg in his truck. Everyone speeds up except Tuna, who's riding at a leisurely pace. Greg catches up and pulls him in. He then gets put in the ice cream cooler, just like Chunk in "The Goonies." The remaining Rocketeers (both of them) run into Asshole Cop Brother and inform him of the situation. He decides to go and shoot Greg himself, saying, "We gotta help the fat kid."

As Greg hears Asshole Cop Brother, (with Heather, Johnny, and his girlfriend... yeah, real safe, dumbass) drive over, he puts Small Paul back in the crawlspace. Yep, Asshole Cop Brother's going to die. He investigates, pistol in hand, passing right by Greg (he has a frame in front of his face, making him look like a freak with a frame in front of his face, and even less like a framed picture).

Asshole Cop Brother returns and sits in the car. Then he turns around, revealing that it's just Greg in Asshole Cop Brother's clothing. He then stabs the girlfriend in the head with some ice cream tool, making me wonder "What did she do?" Anyway, Johnny and Heather run out of the car and find a police car. But oops, the two uniformed cops in it are dead. Looks I forgot to note a scene where Greg approaches their car and offers the uniformed cops some ice cream. Whoops. Then somehow within a couple seconds, Greg has their heads on sticks and is playing puppet with them, making their mouths moving. We see his fingers moving on the sticks, somehow making the mouths move. He continues to do this, long after the bit has gone stale. I must say that the decapitated heads look pretty good. It's at this point in the movie that I notice the back of the Ice Cream Truck. "Watch out for Children!" is slightly faded, making it say "Watch out Children!" Heh.

Now the two plainclothes cops decide to investigate the factory once more, warrant or not. Finally! They find Greg and get Tuna back. Then Greg disappears out of sight, jumps down from on top of the truck, and knocks the two cops out with ice cream scoopers. Tuna runs in the factory and finds Small Paul. When Greg runs in he finds Small Paul with a Fudge Ripple painting in front of his face and a flashlight shining on it. Of course Greg, being a nutcase, thinks it's the real Fudge Ripple, and follows it as it leads him to the blending vat. He falls in. "Who's the Pied Piper now, Ice Cream Dick?" Small Paul says as he turns the vat on and it cuts him up. After that, we're treated to the usual cop investigation/clean up aftermath. Here we find out that Nurse Warden still doesn't know where her dog went.

Gratuitous product placement AND gore!

Some time later, we see that Tuna's fat ass has slimmed down (yep, they removed the pillow) as the remaining three Rocketeers make Roger the new fourth member and give him a beret. When Roger asks where Small Paul is, one of them replies, "Where else? Therapy." We then cut to Small Paul in a dark room playing with a toy ice cream mixer. He looks at the camera and smiles. The end. That's not therapy. And he seemed ok when he killed Greg.

For some odd reason (and this was pointed out to me), everyone in this movie is wearing Converse® brand shoes (you can see this in all the images here). Supposedly the Director told everyone to wear them, saying that Converse® was paying to have their shoes in the movie, which makes me wonder why? I guess this movie was all that Converse® could afford. It's probably more like the Director though if he put the shoes in the movie, Converse® would have to pay him for it. I've noticed that the shoes are in amost every image... as if the director said "Make sure the shoes are in the shot! I'm in the money..."

Now, there's a reason (yeah, I'm shocked, too) Tuna was just a skinny kid with a pillow in his shirt. This movie was shot in ONE DAY. I guess no town could allow Clint Howard to be there for more than 24 hours, which is probably why Clint only has small roles in all of Opie Taylor's films. Because it was shot in one day, it was impossible to have a real fat kid, since he had to become slim real quick. Hence the pillow. Since this is a porn director directing, it makes me wonder if porno flicks are shot in a very small amount of time, too... which would explain why this was shot in a day. And also why it sucks.

REAL MOVIE GRADE:

CRAP MOVIE GRADE:

So bad, you'll never want ice cream again. Or Clint Howard.

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