Mr. Ice Cream Man (1996)

When I watched the trailer for this one, it appeared to be shot on film and was kind of gritty looking. There were also old cars and metal playgrounds. The whole thing looked like something out of the 1970s. So imagine my surprise when I put the dvd in and found a crisp, shot on video movie from the 1990s.

Kids in the neighborhood have been disappearing so the police come to the grade school to speak about safety. After explaining how dangerous strangers are, the detective gives each kid a plastic whistle to use in case anyone tries to hurt them. He also admonishes the kids to only use it in an emergency, and surprisingly enough the kids do not spend their recess period blowing into the whistles.

Joey, who lives with his sister because his parents are dead, invites his friends to his birthday party. It's a sleep over and there will even be an ice cream man there. When his friend Roland heads over to the party, an ice cream truck peels around the corner and starts chasing him. Unfortunately Roland is incredibly stupid. Instead of heading for the nearest house, he runs straight down the middle of street with the truck right at his heels.

After a quick shot of Joey wondering where Roland is, we cut back to Roland still running, except now he's out of town and the sky is dark. There's no explanation as to why Roland keeps running aimlessly, why he doesn't get off the road so the truck can't follow him, why the truck can't drive fast enough to catch up to a fat kid, or why Roland has been running for hours since it was light when he started and now it's night time.

This is one weird film with horrible acting and a nonsensical plot line. And honestly, I still am not sure whether the kid playing Roland is an incredibly horrible actor or if he's retarded. He's about twice the size of the other kids and acts as if instead of really running, he's only pretending to run.