“Hostel” and “Cabin Fever” filmmaker Eli Roth’s new horror tale “Ice Cream Man” has become the subject of controversy in the last day or so as reviews for the title have emerged.
The $5.5 million-budgeted horror film follows an ice cream truck driver (Ari Millen) whose frozen treats turn the children of an idyllic summer town into homicidal maniacs. Reviews haven’t been good (though not disastrous), the title sitting at 33% (4.3/10) on Rotten Tomatoes and a 41/100 on Metacritic.
But it’s the inclusion of AI visual effects company Dark Half in its credits that has led people online to wonder how much of the film was created using generative AI.
Part of it ties to a Fleischer Studios-esque cartoon seen in the film that children get on their phones, the clip hypnotising them into becoming killers.
Roth previously told Polygon he had drawn the clip himself – drawing 1920s haunted Mickey Mouse cartoons-esque frames which he then handed to animators to “help kind of make it a little more fluid” and an artist “to give it a bit of an old-timey jittery feel”.
The outlet then followed up about the film’s use of AI with Roth issuing a statement: “I misspoke. AI was used in a very small portion of a few scenes in the film. It was an opportunity where technology and creativity came together to help bring my vision for the film to life.”
Roth reportedly didn’t specify which scenes used generative AI or how the technology was incorporated, saying only it was limited to “a very small portion of a few scenes”.
The comments follow in the wake of a Reddit thread claiming the film used generative AI throughout. The film is neither the first, or last, to be subjected to intense online scrutiny over its AI use.
