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RICHARD MARTIN REVISITS THE MASTERS OF HORROR: WE ALL SCREAM FOR ICE CREAM, DIRECTED BY: TOM HOLLAND

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We are living in a golden age of horror on TV. Shows like ‘The Walking Dead’, ‘Supernatural’ and ‘American Horror Story’ have effectively taken the genre mainstream, offering weekly doses of gore and mayhem to the masses. Go back a decade or two however, and genre fans had far fewer options to choose from. Anthology shows, like ‘Tales From the Crypt’, ‘Monsters’ or ‘Tales From the Darkside’ were king during the horror heyday of the 1980s, providing cheesy and cheerful tongue in cheek horror in half hour bites. It wasn’t until 2005 that the TV horror anthology show got serious, and delivered arguably the most consistent, memorable and scary anthology show to date.

The brainchild of horror legend Mick Garris, the show’s title is no hyperbole. ‘Masters of Horror’ brought together the best horror talent Hollywood (and beyond) had to offer. Episodes directed by undisputed genre luminaries such as John Carpenter, Tobe Hooper, Dario Argento and Stuart Gordon were like hour long movies brought to your TV screen. High production values, A-List talent and a free reign to do whatever they pleased resulted in some truly unforgettable work from a group of horror legends let off their leash. These are stories that have stayed with me in the fifteen years since many initially aired and, in this series, I’ll be revisiting all twenty-six episodes, one at a time, to shine a light on a fondly remembered and undeniably influential moment in horror TV history.
Join me as I take a look back at

We All Scream For Ice Cream
Directed by: Tom Holland
Starring: William Forsythe, Lee Tergesen, Brent Sheppard, Colin Cunningham,
Original Air Date: 12 January 2007
Synopsis: A childhood prank gone wrong comes back to haunt a group of families when a local ice cream man comes back from the dead to enact his revenge.

REVISITING THE MASTERS OF HORROR, WE ALL SCREAM FOR ICE CREAM
DIRECTED BY: TOM HOLLAND

​Tom Holland isn’t a name I see mentioned nearly often enough when listing significant or influential horror directors. I have no idea why, because even the big names must surely envy the mans filmography. Set aside for a moment that he made his directorial debut with one of the best vampire movies ever made (1985s ‘Fright Night’) and kickstarted the ‘Child’s Play’ series (a personal favourite of mine), but he’s directed two of my favourite Stephen King adaptations (‘The Langoliers’ and ‘Thinner’) and has written some downright classics (‘Psycho II’, ‘The Beast Within’, ‘Class of 1984’). Does ‘We All Scream For Ice Cream’ live up to this impressive legacy? Let’s find out!

The episode wastes absolutely zero time kicking things off and offers up some truly weird and gooey effects and an interesting set-up for what’s to come. A young boy and his dad are outside at night. The kid has an ice cream bar in his hand and the dad looks terrified. He starts begging the boy not to eat it.

Odd, right? Just wait, it gets better.

So, the kids not having any of it and takes a bit ol’ bite out of the ice cream. As soon as he does, the dad crumples to the floor in agony. The camera goes back to the kid enjoying his tasty treat while, in the background and out of shot, we hear some agonised screaming and a weird, gooey bubbling noise. The shot switches to an overhead of the kid and his dad.

Well, what was his dad at least. He is now a puddle of melted ice cream (Neapolitan flavour, in case you’re curious). No explanation at all. He was a man, now he is dairy. Yeah, I think I’m going to enjoy this episode.

We’re introduced to the episodes main character via a funeral for the poor guy we just saw last as a vanilla/strawberry/chocolate puddle (Kent, played very briefly by Brent Sheppard). I’m not quite sure how they know he’s dead, given he spontaneously turned into dessert, but this is a strange episode and it doesn’t do to pick at the logic. We learn that Layne (Lee Tergesen) is an old childhood friend of Kents and there is some suggestion that Layne is haunted by a childhood trauma that Kent was involved in. Consider me intrigued so far.

I raved about director Tom Holland in my intro, but there are some major horror heavy-hitters in the writing department as well for this episode. It is based on a novelette by horror lit A-lister John Farris. Carrying the slightly more cumbersome title of ‘I Scream, You Scream, We All Scream For Ice Cream’, it was first published in his collection ‘Scare Tactics’ and its heavy Stephen King style and coming of age horror vibes absolutely carry forward into what’s on-screen here. The script has been written by David J Schow. I won’t reiterate the glowing praise I showered on him in my write-up for season one episode, ‘Pick Me Up’ but needless to say, his name on any project is a sure sign of quality.

There is a lot of time spent with Layne as he visits the local bar and we meet his family, but I’ll skip right ahead to the good stuff and tell you about Buster (William Forsythe). We don’t see much of him in the present-day until the end of the episode, but we get to know him pretty well in flashbacks (which are a big highlight). Buster was a kindly ice cream man who drove his van around the neighbourhood. All the kids knew him by his signature clown suit, complete with a rainbow wig and big red nose. He’s cheerful, friendly and an all-around nice guy. When Layne is telling this story to his wife in the present, she asks him what happened to Buster and Layne just replies “He died”. Come on now Layne, stop holding out on us I bet there’s more to it than that.

Sure enough, when another of his childhood friends die a painful death by dairy product transmogrification, Layne gives us the whole story. His group of friends in his youth included the town bully, Virgil, who wasn’t a big Buster fan. Virgil encouraged the group to play a prank on poor Buster, getting some of the kids to distract him while he forces Layne to let the handbrake go on his ice cream truck. Things go to plan, but Buster doesn’t see the truck coming until it’s too late. It seems that Buster has come back for some long-overdue vengeance.

One of the things that I did enjoy about this episode was the grey morality of almost all the characters, including the ‘villain’ and the ‘hero’. I’d go so far as to say that Buster is the most sympathetic character in the episode thanks to the flashbacks. The kids that inadvertently caused his death aren’t bad kids (Virgil being a debatable exception) either and it creates an interesting tension because while we empathise with Buster, you never really go so far as to root for him in the present day, and while the main cast arguably committed a terrible act in their youth and largely avoided any real consequences for it, you never take any real satisfaction from what happens to them when Buster returns.

By now we have a much clearer idea of what Layne is up against. Buster has come back from the dead (and looks a hell of a lot more menacing than the friendly and harmless clown of the flashbacks). Not content to just come after the kids that caused his death, he has waited until they’ve all grown up and have kids of their own. He is then luring these kids out in the middle of the night to give them ice cream and, if they eat it, their parent… turns into ice cream. Sounds a bit silly when I type it out like that. Maybe it is a bit silly… until you see what happens to Virgil.

So far the death scenes have either been off-camera, a bit tame, or a whole lot of ridiculous, but Virgil is the real bad guy of the piece and grown-up Virgil is even more of a dick than he was when he was a kid, so there is something extra special in store for him. Layne comes to warn him about Buster but Virgil seems unconcerned. After all, he doesn’t have any kids.

Or so he thinks.

Layne is there to witness Virgil get his comeuppance and it is really something to behold. It’s like he got a full-on look into the Ark of the Covenant and found it full of ice cream products. First, his skin starts melting and sloughing off until he’s screaming at his own skeleton hands. He’s pulling chunks of his face off, vomiting ice cream everywhere, it’s absolutely disgusting. I loved it! The effects are all practical and it looks fantastic. It’s so daft and over the top but also really graphic and weirdly disturbing. The effects team really outdid themselves with this one
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Layne and Buster have the inevitable mano a mano showdown at the end and I’ll not be telling you who comes out on top, but I will say that I thought Layne’s grand plan was kind’ve inspired and very much in keeping with the tongue-in-cheek, blackly comedic tone the episode has excelled at throughout the entire 60-minute runtime.

I wouldn’t rank ‘We All Scream For Ice Cream’ up there with my all-time favourite episodes of Masters of Horror, but that isn’t to say it isn’t a pretty great episode. It was a lot of fun, a nice kooky concept and some bizarre visuals. It’s certainly memorable, and the practical effects work is some of the best in the series two-year run. Layne is a bit bland until the grand finale where he comes into his own. Buster, however, is the episode highlight, both in the present-day and flashbacks and he is what you’ll remember. A great potential horror icon that doesn’t get the credit he deserves. OK, so turns out I was Team Buster all along.


Join me next time as I’ll be looking at episode eleven of the second season, Stuart Gordon’s ‘The Black Cat’. See you then!
If you missed any of Richard's previous Revisting The Masters of Horror articles, you can find links to them all here on our handy landing page 

THE MASTERS OF HORROR 
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Richard is an avid reader and fan of all things horror. He supports Indie horror lit via Twitter (@RickReadsHorror) and reviews horror in all its forms for several websites including Horror Oasis and Sci Fi and Scary


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