Baylen Bay, the fictional setting of Ice Cream Man, looks to be the dictionary definition of “idyllic.” Since the movie is directed by Eli Roth (Thanksgiving), you know that’s pure facade. Like, one block over, perhaps a young Kyle MacLachlan is stumbling upon an ant-laden ear in the grass.

On Roth’s block, however, the suburb’s children are all abuzz over the new dispenser of frozen desserts (Ari Millen, TV’s Orphan Black), whose truck blasts a Silver Shamrock-esque earworm of a jingle. Once kids eat his treats, they’re susceptible to an act of Weapons-style witchery hearing that tune unlocks: mass parricide.

Thanks to his lactose intolerance, our preteen protagonist (Charlie Zeltzer, a real find) is spared. He spends the last two-thirds of the movie under siege in school — shades of 2014’s Cooties — as his classmates prey upon anyone not following the Pied Piper of Popsicles. (“Is this some kind of Zombie Pajama Day Challenge?” asks one confused faculty member.)

This is Ice Cream Man’s demarcation point, as Roth, unshackled from an MPA rating, goes whole-hog on the gore — so soupy, so chunky — that you’re either in or long gone. I’d be the latter, if not for Roth and co-writer Noah Belson stirring in an equal amount of gallows humor. Sight gags get increasingly ghoulish, like a stairwell sight of two kids playing a game of Operation using a teacher as the bulb-nosed board.

Despite sharing a title and a tagline, this scoop of goop isn’t a remake of the 1995 Clint Howard vehicle. Call this one Children of the Cones — or, if you’re hip to the Brits, Children of the Corneo. Bound to offend more people than it delights, Roth’s exercise in splatstick with sprinkles feels less fully formed than his usual work, perhaps as a self-imposed challenge or an idea he simply needed to knock out of his system. I’m glad he did if that’s the case, although he’s capable of more than this flavor allows. Still, if only all genre throwaways were canny enough to visually reference Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds and Lucio Fulci’s Zombie, with neither a stretch. —Rod Lott

In theaters Friday, Aug. 7.

Instead of hitting the hay to rest for her grad-school audition, the irresponsible Maggie (Sammi-Jack Martincak, 2024’s Incoming) slums on the couch to watch a movie with her fellow Gen Z friends. I can relate to that desire. I also can relate to them having trouble deciding what to watch. In no way can I relate to Maggie spontaneously inviting her exasperating Uncle Heppy (Sam Landman, 2025’s Good Sport) to join, even over her girlfriend’s protests.

Heppy brings his rare DVD for Night of the Lurchers, an obscure 1999 B movie about zombie-like beings that suck the souls from people until they’re mere husks. The film is known for being cursed, with several crew members having died and the director disappeared, all under the usual mysterious circumstances. (The Venture Brothers’ James Urbaniak and Mystery Science Theater 3000 alum Bill Corbett provide film-in-film cameos.) And when Maggie clicks the proper buttons to unlock the disc menu’s rumored Easter egg, the world of the movie no longer restricts itself to staying on the backside of the screen.

As someone who lived — and purchased his way — through the peak DVD era and watched every disk’s special feature until the pile grew overwhelming, I should get a kick out of Dead Media. There’s no doubt writer/director Joseph Scrimshaw’s heart is in the film; it’s even in the right place. It just never catches a beat, as if biding time for someone to swoop in with the defibrillator paddles.

Like many first features, its rhythms are off. That shows up most in the cast’s overly exaggerated, performative approach, which was anathema to my enjoyment. Something of a calmer Rip Taylor, Uncle Heppy isn’t someone I’d want to be stuck next to in social settings (although he does have a killer Blue’s Clues insult), while Maggie is defined by her trauma — a current crutch of the horror genre. And her pals aren’t given much of a personality, other than that the woman (Jessica Fenton) likes to knit, while the guy (Antonio Teodoro) has a hair swoop that threatens to topple him and, for a split second, can be mistaken for Tig Notaro.

The premise to Dead Media has an analog ancestor in the VHS-oriented The Video Dead. As rinky-dinky as that 1987 rental is, its execution doesn’t annoy because the pic is campy by accident, whereas Dead Media tries too hard to be — until the conclusion, when it suddenly wants to get serious in a shift conducted without a clutch. —Rod Lott