ACM Official: Ice Cream Man

 

I want to start this off with a side note stating that I woke up waaaayyy to late to have the time to watch a full horror flick to write about it, so I just went on YouTube and looked up "horror movie short films" and one of the first results that popped up was one for a three minute endeavor simply named "Ice Cream Man". The thumbnail is what's posted above to start this piece off, and I just had to watch this because ice cream is one of my favorite treats among how ever many thousands of other tooth-rotted parlays that are out there, and because this guy just looks way to goofy to ignore. I mean, just look at this guy-I wouldn't be caught dead hanging out with this weirdo let alone being okay with the fact that he would be my local ice cream man. He just screams "I just love serving frozen treats to little kids..." and I'm going to stop there because now I just want to take a bat or some sort of a heavy object-turned-weapon to beat the living shit out of him until one eye is sunken in and the other is so black and blue that he'll need reconstructive surgery after it's finally over. I don't know if I would ever let it be over. I'll state up front too that I don't know anything at all about ACM Official, I don't know who Alex Magana is and he did not contact me at all to review this, but here it goes...

So this young girl opens the freezer to look for something to eat and she gets out a pint of Dreyers (not Breyers) vanilla ice cream and her little sister just shows up out of nowhere behind the freezer door while it's open. Her name is Sophie and she warns her not to start eating the ice cream because it's their mother's ice cream and 'the ice cream man will show up if anyone but their mother eats it' and that she needs to be careful. So Riley (the older sister) shrugs it off and plunks down on the couch and starts eating it. Lo and behold, this guy does randomly appear off to the side in a doorway with a goofy-assed grin on his face, and then when Riley isn't looking in between bites his hand starts creeping out of the top of the ice cream container to to formulate some fear and dread. Then he just pops up behind her and tells her that she's going to give all the ice cream back that she just ate... every last scoop. Here's my favorite thing about this Ice Cream Man short-the ice cream man himself. I don't know who Brandon Joseph Burnette is, or if he's been in anything else (or even any other ACM Official productions) but this guy is great. His energy and demeanor that he employs for the villain himself really, really reminded me of Larry Drake as Dr. Giggles. He almost seemed like he wanted to have that sort of unhinged cackle with a layer of psychotic charm behind it just like Dr. Giggles did, but he held back. I think that would have added to it a little bit while he was actually scooping the ice cream back out of Riley's throat and tossing it back into the ice cream container. Man, now I just want to watch Dr. Giggles again for the hundredth time-but honestly zits and zombies, if you're limited (very limited) on time like I was this morning because I woke up a lot later than I normally do to write something on here and still need some kind of a horror fix, look up Ice Cream Man from ACM Official. I think you'll dig it. If you don't, then I don't know. I mean, there's always the Ice Cream Man from 1995 horror flick with Ron Howard in it playing Gregory Tudor, and that's a great one too. Or I Scream For Ice Cream from the Masters Of Horror series that was released on DVD a number of years ago, and that's also a fantastic ice cream centric piece that I've always enjoyed. So there's options out there for creamery based horror. Now go get it. I just won't be the one on the ice cream truck.

Freddy's Back-Leavy For Krueger

 

So, bit-by-bit recently my wife has been showing me pics, trailers, clips and various other pieces of media depicting Michael Leavy as the new potential Freddy Krueger and I have to say this guy has got it. He's got the voice, the tone, the look, the way he moves-everything. If you have not seen it yet or bothered to look it up, there is a four minute short film on YouTube with him in full make-up and Freddy attire with the glove, hat and sweater, doing his thing and invading the nightmares of some young chick named Natalie. This basically ends up being a promo piece or "bumper" if you will to try to get fans, press and audiences pumped up and ready to justify why Michael Leavy should indeed play the new Freddy Krueger. The feeling that was imbued in me almost immediately when the short started was that this would be in fact a fresh, new version of A Nightmare On Elm Street that I don't know if we necessarily need because we can all just go back and watch the original with Robert Englund, but we do actually all need so desperately to forget about that abomination remake with Jackie Earle Haley that was released in 2010. My wife and I saw it in the theater when it was released back then and us and everyone else in the theater hated it. I don't know a single fan of the franchise that liked it. At all. For any reason. Maybe there are some Freddy fans out there that embrace that film and like it at the very least for what it is, but there's no way in hell if I was still collecting physical copies of horror films would I reserve any kind of space on my shelf for that piece of shit. This however-this potential new flick starring Michael Leavy as Freddy Krueger-the invader and killer of our dreams-which is also approved by Robert Englund himself which is fantastic-this will be a legendary remake. I'd wager that this would most likely be on the same level of ten out of ten remakes in the realm of The Fly, The Blob, IT with Bill Skarsgard and John Carpenter's The Thing (everyone forgets that that's a remake too) because after all the pieces that my wife has shown me as well as watching the short film this morning, I'm confident. I'm very confident that this is the torch that needed to be handed off to carry this character into the future to garner possible new fans and audiences so that Freddy Krueger will never be forgotten. Let's be real though-this character is way to much of a horror icon at this point to ever be fully forgotten, it's just great to see someone a lot younger with the talent, looks, charisma and energy to be able to keep this going. 1-2 Freddy's coming for you... 3-4 better lock your door... 

I'm not a hashtag guy by any means, but I have to say #LeavyForKrueger. I'm all in. And he's getting shout-outs from fucking Felissa Rose, Barbara Crampton and Robert Englund himself. What more could he possibly need to make this happen? Nothing I say. Nothing. We as horror fans are here for it and there's nothing that can stop him. Unless of course there ends up being some kind of bullshit studio interference or something because that's an unfortunate possibility. But here we are. Can't wait until this comes to fruition. It's going to be one for the books. Watch for it.