Maters of Horror: We All Scream for Ice Cream starts at the funeral of Kent (Brent Sheppard), all his friends are there including Layne (Lee Tergesen) who had recently moved back to the town. He hasn't seen his childhood gang the 'West End Bunch' in years & this isn't a happy reunion as another of his old mates Toot (Lyle St. Goddard) feels there are underhand forces at work that want to wipe them all out, Layne & the rest of the West End Bunch think he's talking nonsense but that very night Toot mysteriously disappears. Layne starts to get very worried that a dark childhood secret has returned to claim the lives of the West End Bunch using their children & ice cream as the supernatural means to do so...
This American Canadian co-production was episode 10 from season 2 of the hit-and-miss Masters of Horror TV series, directed by Tom Holland I thought We All Scream for Ice Scream was a definite miss & a rubbishy story that didn't do anything for me at all. The script by David J. Schow was based on the annoyingly titled short story 'I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream' by John Farris & is a pretty lame attempt at horror, the main problem I had with We All Scream for Ice Cream is that it takes itself so seriously & it tries to be scary. Unfortunately the basic story of a dead ice cream man coming back from the dead to avenge his death by turning his teenage killers into big puddles of ice cream is even more ridiculous watching it on telly than it sounds here, I just couldn't take the silly notion seriously at all & I sat there extremely unmoved. As an episode it's rather predictable with the 'hero' saving the day in stupid fashion during the lacklustre ending & a story that is very linear & a bit clichéd. However, there's at least one messy special effect worth seeing & at less than a hour in length it moves along at a decent enough pace although even then it failed to really grip or engage me.
Judging by this I'm not sure director Holland can be considered a master of horror but that's down to personal opinion I suppose, to be fair he knows how to turn in a decent looking effort & We All Scream for Ice Cream has nice enough production values. This one's not the usual gore-fest, there's a cool scene when someone messily melts into ice cream but why did the previous two victims not melt in this way especially the first one who one moment is standing there & the very next he's melted to nothing within a split second? The constant shots of the supernatural ice cream van driving through it's very own fog cloud (it must have it's own mini climate) was embarrassing to watch at times & about as unscary an image I can think of.
Technically the show's fine & even pretty impressive as it belies it's low budget made-for-TV roots, the special effects are excellent as usual although how the actor's managed to keep a straight face while acting this stuff out is beyond me. There's not a hint of irony here at all & they all seem to take this extremely seriously like an Oscar was on the line.
We All Scream for Ice Cream isn't the worst Masters of Horror I've seen but it's down there I'm afraid, just about worth a watch for fans but there are much better Masters of Horror stories out there.
This American Canadian co-production was episode 10 from season 2 of the hit-and-miss Masters of Horror TV series, directed by Tom Holland I thought We All Scream for Ice Scream was a definite miss & a rubbishy story that didn't do anything for me at all. The script by David J. Schow was based on the annoyingly titled short story 'I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream' by John Farris & is a pretty lame attempt at horror, the main problem I had with We All Scream for Ice Cream is that it takes itself so seriously & it tries to be scary. Unfortunately the basic story of a dead ice cream man coming back from the dead to avenge his death by turning his teenage killers into big puddles of ice cream is even more ridiculous watching it on telly than it sounds here, I just couldn't take the silly notion seriously at all & I sat there extremely unmoved. As an episode it's rather predictable with the 'hero' saving the day in stupid fashion during the lacklustre ending & a story that is very linear & a bit clichéd. However, there's at least one messy special effect worth seeing & at less than a hour in length it moves along at a decent enough pace although even then it failed to really grip or engage me.
Judging by this I'm not sure director Holland can be considered a master of horror but that's down to personal opinion I suppose, to be fair he knows how to turn in a decent looking effort & We All Scream for Ice Cream has nice enough production values. This one's not the usual gore-fest, there's a cool scene when someone messily melts into ice cream but why did the previous two victims not melt in this way especially the first one who one moment is standing there & the very next he's melted to nothing within a split second? The constant shots of the supernatural ice cream van driving through it's very own fog cloud (it must have it's own mini climate) was embarrassing to watch at times & about as unscary an image I can think of.
Technically the show's fine & even pretty impressive as it belies it's low budget made-for-TV roots, the special effects are excellent as usual although how the actor's managed to keep a straight face while acting this stuff out is beyond me. There's not a hint of irony here at all & they all seem to take this extremely seriously like an Oscar was on the line.
We All Scream for Ice Cream isn't the worst Masters of Horror I've seen but it's down there I'm afraid, just about worth a watch for fans but there are much better Masters of Horror stories out there.