The version of The Ice Cream Man that Zack and I rented had the “special bloodless cover” showing Clint Howard holding an ice cream cone with a skull on top. On the IMBD, I found the original “blood cover”, which was very superior, especially Clint’s wacky expression that is different from the one on the bloodless cover. It’s not a good sign when the first paragraph of a movie review talks about various cover versions. One day in the 1950’s, an Ice Cream Man died while a stunned boy looked on. Several years later, the stunned boy is now an Ice Cream Man mixing in his special ingredients. Kids are shocked when they see Clint Howard mixing doggy bits into their favorite butterscotch ice cream. Olivia Hussey, an actress who was fantastic as Juliet in the old Romeo and Juliet movie but now is relegated to supporting roles in movies like this one and Psycho 4, plays the neighbor who calls the Ice Cream Man a “nice boy.” The Ice Cream Man is a very slow movie. By far, the highlight is when Clint Howard straps two heads onto sticks and has them tell crazy jokes. The killings are OK at best, but definitely not horrible. Unless you’re one of the three Clint Howard fans in the world, don’t watch this movie. I give The Ice Cream Man *1/2 out of ****.

Behold, the Bloodless cover!

With covers like these, how could we not rent them? How could we have suspected that this movie would even be remotely bad? How could we have been so stupid? This movies takes too damn long, trying to develope the Ice Cream Man's character. I wouldn't have cared if they never explained why he was crazy, as long as he kept killing people in gruesome, ice cream-related ways. But alas, I never got to see a guy get a cones shoved in his eyes, or a kid getting run over by the ice cream truck. The only good death scene, has a severed head placed on an ice cream cone. That was pretty cool. The rest of the movie, is terribly slow. *1/2 out of ****

For those of us, who aren't pansies, here's the original cover