Masters of Horror: We All Scream For Ice Cream
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It’s time again for “Let’s Get to Know Your Reviewer!”

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Clowns scare the shit out of me. Thank You, See you next week!!!!

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I was damn excited to see We All Scream for Ice Cream. Why you ask? I believe I mentioned my clown thing above. We All Scream for Ice Cream tells the tale of Buster the clown coming back for revenge after his wrongful death. See, long ago he was killed in an accident when a prank by some kids went sour. Years later his frozen treats truck is now rolling thorough town at night, going after the pranksters from that accident (now grown up with families.) What better way to kill the people responsible for his death, but through their children. Luring their children with his pied piper music he gives the kids a tasty looking voodoo doll ice cream bar. One bite and the kid’s father die in quite a gooey fashion. One man, who still feels the guilt of what happened long ago, finds out what will happen to him and his friends if he doesn’t stop Buster.

Great setup huh? I mean, you have a dead clown, sloppy deaths, some great actors with William Forsythe and Lee Tergesen and freakin voodoo-cicles. For starters I have always been a fan of William Forsythe (Dick Tracy, Cloak and Dagger) for years and he shines here as Buster the mentally slow clown bringing happiness to the kids. Hell, there were numerous times that I felt pretty damn bad for Buster. Screw those kids. Kill them all!
Lee Tergesen (Oz, Weird Science the Series) is also great as the one man who feels guilty about his part in the past. There were a few additional good things about this episode other than the above.

Buster in his evil clown form looks intimidating and the gore effects are reminiscent of “The Stuff”. I also have to give some credit to the lighting in the episode. When that ice cream trucks goes rolling down the dark street with the fog flowing around it is quit effective looking.

The problem with this whole episode is the execution. Tension is nowhere to be found here. The scenery is dark, mist is flowing in the air and a lone creepy ice cream truck comes rolling through the town luring kids to its “treats” yet you get no feeling from it. People are dying sticky deaths and you sit there staring at the clock. If you took some of the gore scenes away, you would end up with a Disney channel Halloween special. I’m not saying that this is a horrible or boring episode per se, but with all the elements here this should be a slam dunk. Everything here is gold, yet it came out so bland. Buster in his undead fashion doesn’t really do much to be horrific, no one seems to notice that all the people from the past accident are turning to goo and time clicks away till the episode is over with no real payoff. We All Scream for Ice Cream looks like a Bomb Pop on paper, but it ends up just being a freezer burned Pink Panther with stale bubble gum eyes.

Added:  Tuesday, August 14, 2007
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