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

Somewhere along the South American coast, likely just a grid square or two from Blood Island, lives milquetoast myth-buster J. Peter Wells. He’s played by Walter Reed, not to be confused with yellow fever pioneer Dr. Walter Reed. (The latter’s name adorns hospitals, schools and other renowned institutions; the former was in Superman and the Mole-Men and comes off like a sub-John Saxon struggling to stifle an oncoming IBS incident.)

Peter’s writing a book on voodoo. He couldn’t have picked a better spot, what with all the thick-of-night rituals involving voodoo dolls, snakes, dead goats, dancing in circles, drums aplenty and topless villagers for sacrifice.

This is the world of Macumba Love. According to Google my crack investigating skills, “macumba” refers to a type of Afro-Brazilian folk religion. And the “love”? Well, it could be the staid Peter making time with local hottie Venus de Viasa (Ziva Rodann, The Private Lives of Adam & Eve).

Or Peter’s honeymooning daughter (visibly buoyant June Wilkinson, The Bellboy and the Playgirls) showing up with hubby Warren (William Wellman Jr., Winter a-Go-Go), whom Peter greets with the cringe-inducing “My replacement!”

Or Venus flirting with Warren so aggressively and openly on the dance floor, she may as well be grinding her mons pubis against his leg.

But let’s go with my love — for this kind of crass, garish jungle picture. Horror-adventure travelogue trash is a lost art, and this one offers cut-rate thrills ’n’ chills wrapped in a quasi-whodunit.

While Peter and Venus frolic in the ocean, a corpse surfaces (hi, Bob!) in a well-done jump scare. Pulling a poisoned hatpin from the dead man’s tummy, Peter suspects the work of Mama Rata-loi (Ruth de Souza), the voodoo lady shakin’ that stick and drivin’ them crazy — a solid guess, seeing as how skulls surround her dockside shack’s doorframe. He pops by Mama Rata-loi’s unannounced and says he’s heard enough about “the serpent of revenge and the rest of your voodoo trappings.” Speak for yourself, Peter!

The only film directed by character actor Douglas Fowley, whose CV ranges from Singin’ in the Rain to Cat-Women of the Moon, Macumba Love benefits greatly from the scenery — both Wilkinson, then still a teenager, and outdoor Brazil. Without Mother Nature, production value might be as primitive as the natives participating in the rituals bookending the movie.

As with many B pictures of the day, the threadbare script is padded by several diegetic songs. Personally, I could do with less Calypso, but then, what would Wilkinson have to dance to? —Rod Lott

Sitcom legend John Ritter and erotic thriller queen Monique Parent are forever paired in trivia history for playing realtors who share horror stories of previous homeowners to their prospective buyers. Their respective anthologies are 2000’s Terror Tract and 2012’s The Perfect House, both owing a ton of debt (refi now to lock in 5.56% interest!) to 1961’s House of Mystery.

A young couple (Circus of Horrors’ Colette Wilde and Rough Cut’s Ronald Hines) tour a cottage so lovely, they’re perplexed why its market listing is so low. “I suppose it could be,” answers their host (Jane Hylton, The Manster), “because of the ghost.”

Ah, yes, the ghost. She tells them of the newlywed electrical engineer (Peter Dyneley, TV’s Thunderbirds) who lived there, briefly, before being fatally electrocuted under mysterious circumstances.

She also tells them of the next owners, the Trevors. Shortly after move-in, Joan Trevor (Nanette Newman, 1975’s The Stepford Wives) experiences strange things, like a lamp flickering and, well, a lamp going out. During these instances of alternating-current chicanery, she sees an apparition, so her husband, Henry (Maurice Kaufmann, Gorgo), hires a psychic investigator (Colin Gordon, 1967’s Casino Royale). When Joan dares to pose a question, Henry scolds, “Do shut up, darling.”

One séance later, thanks to an Edith Bunker-looking medium (Molly Urquhart, The Black Windmill), the Trevors have their answer. So do we, with the three time periods threaded together. Now, the twist ending, I anticipated from the first scene, but that’s not a disappointment because the reveal entails a nifty effect for its time.

From Strongroom helmer Vernon Sewell, House of Mystery is worth a 56-minute tour. It’s an unassuming and unfussy UK shocker, albeit set on the jolt level of a novelty joy buzzer. —Rod Lott

Every time I come across “yeti,” I immediately think of my introduction to the word: The creature sitting its hairy ass on sno cone after sno cone lining a sidewalk — a trap set by your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man on an episode of the PBS kid series The Electric Company. Although elementary in craft, that cheap, six-minute segment carries more of a kick than the 1940s-set feature film The Yeti.

An oil magnate (Corbin Bernsen, Major League) and a group of explorers-for-hire go missing in Alaskan Territory after issuing a distress signal. The energy company assembles a veritable super septet to attempt rescue, including a radio specialist (Jim Cummings, The Last Stop in Yuma County), a demolitions expert (Gene Gallerano, Occupy, Texas) and a navigator (Brittany Allen, Jigsaw) whose father (William Sadler, Hard to Kill) is among the disappeared. 

Co-writers/co-directors Gallerano and William Pisciotta initially employ a spirited, semi-campy style that sets up The Yeti as a towering bundle of fun. Instead, it quickly stumbles into a lumbering slog of speeches. If your characters must hunker down in a cabin for a stretch, either stuff their mouths with cracklin’ dialogue (The Hateful Eight) or put a soul-swallowing demon in the fruit cellar (Evil Dead II). 

Our titular cryptid attacks here and there and not often enough. When we finally get a good glimpse of it in its shaggy, matted-hair splendor, you may be reminded of Shriek of the Mutilated meets the beast within Creepshow’s “The Crate” segment. The monster’s murders make for the best parts — sometimes literally, like when Allen’s character attempts to save another from a yeti-yanking, only to be left with the poor sap’s large intestines sliding through her grip like a greased rope. Kudos to the filmmakers for going the practical route rather than taking CGI’s easy out.

The Yeti has the post-WWII pulp aesthetic down pat. (It’s so old-school, “Farmer in the Dell” adorns the soundtrack.) However, visual appeal only gets you so far. Watching is like going on a first (and last) date with someone who looks dynamite, but before the salads have arrived, you’ve discovered little going on between the ears. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.