Ice Cream Man uses generative AI, director Eli Roth confirms

Director Eli Roth has clarified that his upcoming horror film Ice Cream Man uses generative AI in a limited capacity after previously telling Polygon that one of the movie’s AI-assisted sequences was hand-drawn.

The film — a grotesque horror movie about an ice cream truck driver who turns children into homicidal killers — has sparked discussions about its visual style and speculation about its use of AI. A version of the film sent to early reviewers includes AI visual effects company Dark Half in its credits, leading to fans online wondering how much of the film was created using generative AI.

That speculation contrasted with comments Roth made during a recent interview with Polygon about one of the film’s most memorable sequences: an eerie, Fleischer Studios-inspired cartoon that plays on children’s phones before seemingly hypnotizing them into becoming killers. Asked how the animation was created, Roth said he had drawn it himself.

“I have an animation background and I drew it,” Roth told Polygon at the time. “I worked with an animation team and I wanted it to look and feel like — there’s an old Mickey Mouse cartoon where he goes to a haunted house and there’s brooms and dancing skeletons and this kind of flowing dancing stuff and the jittery style of the animation. So I drew the loop cycles and the styles. Then I had some animators help kind of make it a little more fluid, and I worked with an artist to give it a bit of an old-timey jittery feel. But I sat there and I drew out the frames that I wanted, and I tried to match the style of the 1920s haunted Mickey Mouse cartoons.”

Image: The Horror Section

After Polygon followed up about the film’s use of AI, Roth shared an official statement that clarified his earlier comments did not fully capture how the technology was used.

“I misspoke. AI was used in a very small portion of a few scenes in the film,” he told Polygon. “It was an opportunity where technology and creativity came together to help bring my vision for the film to life.”

Roth did not specify which scenes used generative AI or how the technology was incorporated, emphasizing only that its use was limited to “a very small portion of a few scenes.” Polygon followed up with Roth’s representative to clarify which other scenes in Ice Cream Man used generative AI. We also reached out to Dark Half, the AI VFX firm in question, via email but did not receive a response

This article will be updated if Polygon recieves a further response from either Roth or Dark Half.

Ice Cream Man is set to debut in theaters on Aug. 7.