Screener Review: The Ice Cream Truck (2017)

"That poster is awesome, but it's a bit misleading..."

*Thanks to the folks over at October Coast PR for the screener.

The poster for The Ice Cream Truck is all kinds of old school cool. Problem is, the movie itself doesn't deliver anywhere near the slasher-y goodness that the poster promises.

There's no way that I can discuss this movie without spoiling the whole thing, so in the sections below, I'm going to talk about the ending, and what it meant for the movie in general.

If you don't want the movie to be spoiled for you, forget our review and just check it out when you can.

You've been warned.

Mary and her family are moving back to her suburban hometown because they want the simple life. While fetching her morning paper, Mary notices a creepy ice cream truck driver waving at her from the street. Maybe he's delivering some "cool treats" to the lonely housewives of the neighborhood, or maybe he's plotting murder.

WHAT IS HIS END GAME?

Then, some shady looking guy shows up to deliver her furniture, and he gives her the once-over, noticing her wet boob, and walking in on her while she's changing. Maybe he's there to deliver her furniture, or maybe he's planning on giving her a good snuggle struggle instead.

A BUDDING ROMANCE?

The ice cream man starts killing off people in the neighborhood, Mary develops an inappropriate relationship with a local teenage boy, and we're not sure where the delivery guy went, because we were sure that he was going to stick around for some romance.

A suburban nightmare ensues.

I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT HE MISSED THE CONE, AND GOT THE STRAWBERRY SYRUP ALL OVER HIS SHIRT INSTEAD. SLOPPY WORK.

Right off the bat, Megan Freels' sophomore effort felt like an old school slasher flick to us with the way that the credits crawled up the screen to that sharp synth score, and we were sucked in. Deanna Russo made for a likable lead, and Emil Johnsen was suitably creepy as the ice cream truck driver. Jeff Daniel Phillips stole the show as the rapey furniture delivery guy. It was subtly amusing at times, and the kill scenes were decent.

But...

The main issue with the movie is that it plays out as a Horror flick, a commentary on suburban life, and a psychological drama all at once, and never really weaves those aspects together to make it feel coherent. It's well-made for a smaller Indie flick, and it's surely fun enough at times, but it tries to do too many things at once, and thus ends up being a bit of a muddled mess.

If you want to make a Horror flick, make a Horror flick. You can add all the subtext you want about how shady and annoying the suburbs are, and how lonely it can be for a woman to be thrust into a new situation alone, but dammit, deliver on the tension and blood-letting. If not, then drop the Horror bits and just make it a pure drama.

It's really the ending that killed it for me. I know that the movie is supposed to be a takedown of suburban life in general, along with being a profile of a woman and her psychological state, but the whole "it was all in her head" thing is the biggest cop-out there is, and aside from Haute Tension, it's annoying as hell to see a plot device like that negate an entire movie.

Had they played it straight-forward Horror-wise, and kept the subtext that fueled the film to a minimum, it would have been much better for it.

SHE OBVIOUSLY ISN'T A FAN OF BUTTER BRICKLE.

We get some ice cream scooper and knife violence, and some bloody moments throughout.

SHE SHOULD HAVE GONE WITH VANILLA.

There's a sex scene, but it's nothing overtly graphic.

NOT PROVOCATIVE ENOUGH.

The Ice Cream Truck isn't a bad movie, and in fact it's a rather enjoyable one for the most part, but it's also one that doesn't really feel like it knows what it wants to be... or maybe they shouldn't have sold it to us like it's a Horror movie, when it's clearly just the daydream of a bored suburban housewife.

Not bad, but frustrating.

C

The Ice Cream Truck hits limited theaters and VOD on August 18th.

I don't know how this is the first time we're seeing Deanna Russo in anything, but good lord does she ever have our attention now.