ICE CREAM MAN

The film opens in the town of Bayleen Bay, where families are gathered for a little league game. Young Jared Mayfair (Charlie Zeltzer) loses the game for the team. The other kids celebrate their victory as the Ice Cream Man (Ari Millen) drives into the area and gives out his own brand of ice cream to them. Since Jared is lactose intolerant, his older sister Lizzie (Sarah Abbott) takes his ice cream so he won’t get sick later.

Jared and Lizzie go by a shop where they run into Lizzie’s ex-boyfriend Chris (Dylan Hawco). Outside, Jared sees a creepy video on his phone that sounds like a jingle for the Ice Cream Man’s treats. Jared then goes by the home of his best friend Elliot (Luke Dietz), but his mom says Elliot is sick. A bully named Sebastian (Sonam Kalsang) almost takes Jared’s bike until Elliot’s mom comes back out. Jared and Lizzie later have dinner with their parents, Marty and Alison (Eli Roth and Karen Cliche), who are both lawyers like Marty’s dad, Milton Mayfair.

Later at night, the Ice Cream Man drives his truck down the suburban streets, which triggers something in the kids who ate his treats. One little girl named Piper (Charlie Storey) saws her mom’s head off while her brother beats their dad with a basketball. Another brother and sister drill into their dad’s head. One of the boys that bullied Jared joins his sister in tricking their dad into sticking his hand in the garbage disposal, leading to his hand getting shredded before the kids set him on fire. Other parents around town, including Elliot’s, meet similarly grisly ends.

Jared goes to school the next day, where nearly all the kids are still under a trance from the ice cream. The only ones unaffected are Jared, plus classmates Mia and Tommy (Kiori Mirza Waldman and Shiloh O’Reilly). The Ice Cream Man’s jingle plays again, luring all the kids out of class. They go outside to eat more, and one child falls off the roof. A teacher frantically tries to help, only for the kids to knock her down and beat her to death. The other teachers quickly fall victim, with one teacher getting his brains scooped out like a sundae. Jared, Mia, and Tommy run to hide from their classmates.

A cop and firefighter respond to the scene, only to get brutally taken out by the kids as well. Any kids not affected by the ice cream are force-fed by the other children until they turn like them. Jared tries to call for help and reaches Lizzie, but her arms have gone numb and she has trouble getting herself out of bed. Jared tells her to vomit the ice cream like Mia did. Lizzie does so and regains feeling in her arms. She tells Jared to run to the nearby church’s basement since nobody looks in there.

Lizzie runs out into the streets and encounters the children’s carnage. She is forced to stay on a rooftop until she calls Chris for help. He flees from the evil children and picks Lizzie up after using a power hose against the kids.

Jared, Mia, and Tommy finally manage to escape the school and run toward the church in the middle of all the chaos. They are briefly saved by Sebastian, who isn’t turned until the kids catch him and stick the ice cream in his mouth. The other three kids run into the church basement and find a walk-in freezer, where they hide from the Ice Cream Man and the other children.

Inside the freezer, Jared, Mia, and Tommy meet a Preacher (Benjamin Byron Davis), who tells them the true story of the Ice Cream Man. His real name was Jonathan Smiley, and he was just a regular ice cream man until he was accused of committing unspeakable crimes. A shady lawyer, revealed to be Jared’s grandfather Milton, convinced all the children in Bayleen Bay to testify against him, putting him in jail for life. In his cell, Smiley was approached by a necromancer that offered him a deal to get his revenge. Smiley gave up his soul to get retribution against the children, who became parents to the currents kids in town. In order to kill the Ice Cream Man, the kids must kill the necromancer and the siren that accompanies him. Smiley and the kids find the trio, but they escape.

Lizzie and Chris pick up Jared and his friends before heading to the cemetery to find Smiley’s unmarked grave. Smiley and the evil kids form a blockade, but Chris drives through them while the others go looking for the grave. Chris gets killed when one of the kids throws an ice cream scooper at his back. Elliot seemingly breaks from the trance to convince Jared to follow him, but they know it’s a trick. It doesn’t matter since the distraction led to the kids taking Mia and turning her.

Jared and Lizzie dig up Smiley’s grave and find two bodies, believed to be the necromancer and siren. The siblings begin hacking away at the bodies. Jared takes what he thinks is the necromancer’s head to show to Smiley…until Lizzie sees a familiar phone ringing on the body. To their horror, they realize that they have just killed their own parents. Jared holds his dad’s head while Lizzie wails at the sight of her mom’s body. It is then shown that the Preacher was the Necromancer all along. The kids then take Tommy and turn him as well.

Smiley then drives out of Bayleen Bay, having destroyed it completely and earning his revenge. The possessed children follow his truck out of town.