Sadly Over-hyped

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

We All Scream for Ice Cream (2007) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Masters of Horror film about a group of kids who play a prank on an ice cream clown, which eventually kills the clown. As adults, members of the group start getting killed in mysterious ways so has the dead clown returned to seek revenge? This is a horror film so what do you think? Director Tom Holland has delivered some good films in the genre like Fright Night, Child's Play and Thinner but this film here doesn't quite work. The idea behind the story and the way the killings are done is very interesting but outside of that there's not much going on here. All of the performances are rather bland, which doesn't help matters. William Forsythe is the main saving grace as he does a very good job as the clown.

What is it about clowns? For something that is supposed to bring joy to children, there are more scary movies about them almost any other subgenre. Director Tom Holland returns to the genre after a 11 year hiatus with his first for the Masters Of Horror series, We All Scream For Ice Cream. First off, this is far from the greatest entry in the series. It does have its problems. Number one being a somewhat clichéd storyline. What it does have going for it is that in his retirement, Tom Holland hasn't lost the touch. We All Scream For Ice Cream is a fun and nasty little tale of revenge from beyond the grave. There are some really cheesy moments such as the victims of the clown melting into pools of ice cream when the kick off, but its all in good fun. William Forsythe is once again superb as the clown in both his mentally retarded during life and his demonic force after death roles. Overall, I really enjoyed this one. It wasn't the best of the season, but it was far from the worst.

I have genuinely enjoyed every episode of this series so far. However, this is the only one that has prompted me to make a comment. All of the elements of this story--the revenge from beyond the grave, the mistakes of childhood, etc--have all been done before. Rarely have I seen them executed so poorly. You may get some enjoyment out of it if you already have a latent fear of clowns, but I suspect that living, real clowns are scary enough. Having a dead, demonic clown go "IIIIIICCCE CREEEEEEEAM!!!" for 55 minutes isn't scary--it's just ridiculous. The show could have done something interesting with the idea of children wanting to kill their parents, but instead is more interested in doing a crappy knock-off of "It" (another story that did not translate well to screen). Note to filmmakers: if you want to create suspense, don't establish immediately in the first minute that there IS, in fact, a demented clown that has returned from the dead and is melting people. Bah! Wasted potential.

A bunch of children accidentally kill a mentally retarded man who's selling ice cream. Years later these kids are all grown and have children. The vengeful ghost of the ice cream man returns to wreak his vengeance on the men through their children.As you can see the story itself is pretty silly. More than once I found myself smirking at the TV while watching this. There's also some VERY clumsy exposition and pretty poor dialogue. Still I'd be lying if I said I didn't like this.In a way it's kind of fun. The ice cream man is dressed as a clown and clowns ARE scary. There were a few shots of him that were mildly spooky. It's well-directed by Tom Holland, moves quickly (a good idea with such a silly premise) and is very well-acted by everybody. I never believed it for one second and I wasn't really scared but, in a silly way, I had fun with this. However I wouldn't let kids watch it. The clown might scare the little ones silly. I give it a 7.