2026's Most Controversial Horror Movie Gets Abysmal Rotten Tomatoes Score
© Iconic Events Releasing / Courtesy Everett CollectionIce Cream Man has gotten a chilly reception from critics.
The upcoming horror movie, which debuts on August 7, was directed and co-written by Eli Roth and follows a mysterious ice cream man whose treats whip children into a bloodthirsty frenzy. Ice Cream Man has already proven to be highly controversial on social media for the suspected use of generative AI in a number of sequences. Additionally, many social media posts have advocated for boycotts of the movie based on Eli Roth's previous behavior, which includes a 2025 comment that environmental activist Greta Thunberg "needs to be eaten by cannibals" that he reportedly made on his Instagram stories.
Now, Rotten Tomatoes has aggregated enough critics' reviews of Ice Cream Man to give the movie an official Tomatometer score. While the score could fluctuate as more reviews are added, at the time of writing, it has earned a perilously low score of 24% from 25 different reviews. While the movie has some middling and positive reviews, the majority of critics' individual scores are 3 out of 10 or below. It has bottomed out with scores of 1 out of 10 from Geek Vibes Nation's Roberto Tyler Ortiz and D from The Only Critic's Nate Adams.
ScreenRant's own Alex Harrison is one of the critics to have given the movie a score of 3 out of 10. Read an excerpt from his Ice Cream Man review below:
Though the film is gleefully sadistic and doesn't skimp on the gore, Roth fails to build any real tension around it. Most of the violence has a goofy weightlessness to it; Ice Cream Man is about as visceral as an Itchy & Scratchy cartoon, and not nearly as cleverly staged. Without the right tone, there's little chance of the movie making its intended impact.
If this score holds, Ice Cream Man will have officially earned one of the worst Rotten Tomatoes scores for a major 2026 horror movie. Although it has been surpassed by the low scores of the serial killer movie Psycho Killer (9%) and Renny Harlin's trilogy-capper The Strangers: Chapter 3 (18%), it has so far managed to land below critically-belittled titles like the slasher sequel Scream 7 (30%), the Universal Monsters reboot Lee Cronin's The Mummy (45%), the road trip horror movie Passenger (47%), and Luc Besson's Bram Stoker adaptation Dracula (54%).
Although almost exactly 50% of Eli Roth's directorial features have earned Rotten Tomatoes splats, if this score holds, a score below 37% would also cement Ice Cream Man as the filmmaker's third worst-reviewed movie as a director (after Borderlands and Death Wish) and his worst-reviewed horror movie ever.
Below, see a breakdown of the lowest Rotten Tomatoes scores earned by Eli Roth movies:
|
Title |
RT Score |
|---|---|
|
Borderlands (2024) |
10% |
|
Death Wish (2018) |
18% |
|
Ice Cream Man (2026) |
24% |
|
Knock Knock (2015) |
37% |
|
The Green Inferno (2013) |
39% |
|
Hostel Part II (2007) |
44% |
It remains to be seen if the movie earns a similarly low score from verified ticket-buying audience members on the Rotten Tomatoes Popcornmeter. Because the movie has not officially debuted yet, no verified user reviews have been logged. Its reviews and ratings on Letterboxd have also been locked until its release date. However, the tenor of Ice Cream Man reviews from early screenings is similarly dismal, with Duane Miller calling it "one of the worst films I've ever seen" on X, where Room for Scream called it "slop on all levels."
Should audiences ultimately reject Ice Cream Man as resoundingly as critics, it could suffer considerably at the box office, especially as it faces competition from fellow new releases One Night Only and Super Troopers 3, as well as the holdover smash hits The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day. While its reported budget is roughly $6 million, which doesn't necessitate a huge return on investment, only time will tell if it ends up in the black.