Eli Roth says his upcoming horror movie set around a killer ice cream man is "totally insane": "I want to outdo Hostel and Green Inferno"

Director Eli Roth made his name in horror with some of the goriest, most shocking mainstream films of the '00s. But all that may be child's play in comparison to his new thriller Ice Cream Man, which Roth says he intends to outdo even his most bloodthirsty films.

"I want this to be the craziest film I've ever made," Roth tells Geek Vibes Nation. "I mean, I want to outdo Hostel and Green Inferno and Cabin Fever in terms of bat shit crazy. And we just shot it. I'm in post on it now. No release date yet, but thinking maybe late summer. But it's totally insane."

Cabin Fever, Hostel, and Green Inferno could be considered the big three among Roth's films, and they're all notorious for their own reasons. Cabin Fever is a psychedelic body horror nightmare about a flesh eating virus. Hostel is the prototypical torture horror movie, with some of the most gut wrenching scenes in any movie I've seen (and I've seen some horrifying films).

And finally, Green Inferno is a loose remake of the notorious film Cannibal Holocaust which eschews the original film's scenes of actual carnage while maintaining its terrifying narrative of being hunted by cannibals in the deep jungle.

Roth describes Ice Cream Man, which focuses on a creepy purveyor of frozen confections who seems to take over the minds of the children who eat his treats, as "like The Birds but with children."

"I filmed with a hundred kids going completely nuts with like axes and tools, and the kids just kill all the adults, but then they're playing jump rope with the guts and tetherball with a head," Roth says. "I mean, it's totally insane. And I filmed with kids during the summer, and it was one of the funniest, most nuts, the kids were, it was like Christmas morning."

Ice Cream Man hits theaters on August 7. While we wait, stay up to date on all the upcoming horror movies in 2026 and beyond.