On paper, "We All Scream for Ice Cream" looks like a fantastic & ideal addition to the "Masters of Horror" concept. It's directed by Tom Holland, who deserves a listing among the master horror directors based on his "Fright Night" and "Child's Play", the premise offers possibilities for scares (a lot of people are petrified of clowns) as well as for laughs (death by gooey melting) and it stars no other than William Forsythe ("The Devil's Rejects") in the unconventional role of mentally disabled clown. Unfortunately Holland's installment isn't as great as it could and should have been, but still it's a more than entertaining enough way to spend an hour of your time. Layne Baxter returns to his hometown and learns that all members of his childhood posse are dying off in mysterious circumstances. Only their clothes are found, lying in a puddle of gooey substance, and this shortly after their offspring devoured figure-shaped ice cream coins handed out by an eerie clown. When his own children wait hypnotized on the sidewalk at midnight, Layne has no choice but to reveal his hideous childhood secret. He and his clique accidentally killed the friendly but mentally retarded ice cream clown Buster when a harmless prank ran out of hand, and it seems like he reincarnated as a purely evil avenger. The main shortcomings of "We All Scream for Ice Cream" are surprisingly enough the lack of humor and a painfully monotonous execution. The first couple of times you see the uncanny ice cream truck and hear the titular rhyme off screen, it's definitely creepy, but the same ritual is repeated so many times it loses all of its scary impact near the end. Buster's method of killing, albeit quite nasty to behold, rapidly gets repetitive as well. Instead of showing the same stuff over and over again, perhaps the screenplay could have focused on explaining how Buster returned from the dead and how come a retarded clown knows so much about the art of voodoo, but I guess that was too complex. Enough with the criticism now, as the scene with the guy melting in his improvised bathtub is quite awesome and the dialogs during that sequence even hint at pedophilia. William Forsyth is very impressive as Buster and even his most devoted fans will have to look twice before recognizing him underneath all that clown's make up.
Review of We All Scream for Ice Cream
