Mary (Russo) is a freelance writer who moves into a new neighbourhood a few days ahead of the rest of her family coming from Seattle so that she can get the house set up and ensure that the furniture is all in place for their arrival. Boredom starts to scratch away at her as the days meander by and her furniture is delivered by probably the creepiest delivery driver on celluloid.
The local mothers invite her to a graduation party for one of their sons, Max (Redlinger), who shares a beer and a joint with Mary and his girlfriend, Tracy. It becomes clear that Mary misses her youth, back before she had her children. Making her excuses, Mary goes back to the party, with Max following shortly behind, but Tracy stays away, only to be accosted by the driver of an old ’50s style ice-cream truck. Luring her into his truck, he kills her and drives off to a merry tune.
There are a couple of other random murders as the ice-cream driver kills with reckless abandon with nary a care in the world that he is carrying out these heinous crimes in modern suburbia and sometimes in broad daylight, walking around with his gleaming white overalls speckled with blood like a cheap Jackson Pollock painting.
Eventually, after much deliberation and soul-searching, Mary gives into her carnal desires and shags the graduated teen (who looks more like a thirty-year-old) in the local children’s playground – classy lady!
There is a distinct difficulty in reviewing The Ice Cream Truck as it is being promoted as a horror film, but is nothing of the sort. This is more a story about a middle-aged woman who allows herself one more night of basic lust with a kid who is half her age and the real-life horrors that suburbia offers. The murders feel almost tacked on, like you’re watching two different films from wildly different genres at the same time. Nothing seems to be connected.
The ending confuses the viewer even more as you wonder whether anything you’ve previously seen was real or not, but not in the smart way that the director must have intended.
It’s a real head-scratcher, with a few funny moments, but one that has too many toppings and flavours, making it an empty sugar rush for the consumer. If it had chosen to be one or the other, this could have turned out to be really clever.
Instead, it just feels like somebody unplugged the freezer and the contents of the screenplay have melted into another one and they’ve served up a dish that neither offends nor satisfies.
THE ICE CREAM TRUCK / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR: MEGAN FREELS JOHNSTON / SCREENPLAY: MEGAN FREELS JOHNSTON / STARRING: DEANNA RUSSO, EMIL JOHNSEN, JOHN REDLINGER / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
