Ice Cream Man (1995)

Clint Howard as a creepy killer ice cream man?  Perfect.  Always liked this one as it's one of those so bad it's good films.  The 90's had a huge influx of cheap slashers that made every single profession have a crazed themed killer.  It seemed like every weekend when you would hit up the Blockbuster, you'd find a new one of these in the new release section.  I would watch em all.

I'll stick to Ben & Jerry's.

Right off the bat, having Clint Howard playing the title character is just spot on.  He's born to play creepy characters, so a deranged psycho ice cream guy is a no brainer.  Clint does this bad gravely creeper voice throughout the movie which really is bad and wasn't needed to play the part.  You play creepy well enough Clint, you don't need to do voices.  Really in any scene involving people buying ice cream out of Clint's truck, you have to wonder "what the hell is wrong with you?!".

You'll never sleep again HAHA!

So the movie follows the life of Clint's character who witnesses at a young age a mob hit on his local ice cream man (of course).  This event traumatizes poor Clint who grows up in a mental hospital focused on keeping it's patients all happy with ice cream, drugs, and clowns.  So Clint gets out ,becomes an Ice Cream man, and kills people.  It's simple, stupid, and fun.  The movie also follows a group of kids who have to contend with the killer ice cream man and lead to his eventual downfall.  The rest of the cast is made of bad stereotypes mostly to be fodder for Clint to murder.  The police suck at their job of course, just one look at Clint and his truck should have had them end the movie right there and then.  Jan-Michael Vincent plays his usual tough guy cop who probably was coked out of his mind throughout the filming, he clearly doesn't give a shit about being in this movie or react to anything crazy going on around him.

For a movie focused on ice cream, no one seems to be able to handle the stuff.  Clint does a decent job of killing people, but holy crap he can't serve a cone.  It's pretty funny to see Clint Howard struggling constantly at creating an ice cream cone, his hands always getting into the stuff too as he flops it around making a big mess.  People eating the stuff also don't give a shit, there's stuff falling and dripping everywhere so you have to imagine that the cast and crew really didn't have a good time having to film a movie where your props are constantly melting while doing multiple takes.

All about the right toppings

The movie is super low budget and the gore effects are pretty awful, but it's kind of part of it's charm.  Fake body parts all over the place with bits of humans mixed into ice cream and no one noticing it while eating away.  Ice Cream Man feels like it doesn't take itself too seriously, which is good for a movie like this.  There is tons of ridiculous moments, such as putting a decapitated head in a giant waffle cone, or turning cops into hand puppets.  How stupid it all is makes it fun though.  Ice Cream Man is an entertaining bit of schlock and I can't believe the sequel never happened.  A kickstarter for part 2 failed to reach its funding goal, but apparently Clint Howard is still working on getting the sequel made.  I wished more of these low budget slashers were as fun as this, or understood what they were making.  When making an absurd movie you have to kind of realize it should be fun, while so many took themselves way too seriously.