Available at Amazon.com
Directed by
Tom Holland
Cast:
William Forsythe … Buster
Colin Cunningham … Virgil
Tim Henry … Papa Joe
Ingrid Tesch … Angela
Spencer Achtymichuk … Young Layne
Brett Kelly … Young Joe
Samuel Patrick Chu … Young Virgil
Cainan Wiebe … Young Toot
Maxwell Neck … Kenny
Brent Sheppard … Kent
Lee Tergesen … Layne
Coulrophobia n – An extreme fear of clowns.
I wonder what it is about clowns that make them such an object of fear. Being a clown is supposed to be such a happy and wholesome occupation, and yet so many people have this innate apprehension for them. Is it the make-up or the bright colors? Is it that clowns are so happy in the extreme that the intensity of delight they display could only be a shield for real darkness? Is that what the makeup and colors are for, to distract kids from their pain and suffering? If they’ve done nothing else, films like The Devil’s Rejects and Stephen King’s It, have shown us that clowns can really be scary, and it’s this same instinctive fear that permeates throughout Tom Holland’s foray into Showtime’s Masters of Horror, “We all Scream for Ice Cream.
You would actually think that an episode about a ghost clown that comes back from the dead to take revenge on a group of children that have now grown would be impossible to make entertaining, but that’s exactly what occurs here. As he did with Child’s Play, Director Tom Holland’s job with this installment of the horror anthology was to make a ridiculous premise somehow seem plausible. While this entry isn’t as good as Holland’s cult classic, it’s quite watchable all the way through its running time, which is actually something that many of the episodes so far can’t say about themselves.
The main reason the entry ends up working so well is that Holland takes the material so seriously that eventually we just begin to buy into it. The entry also features sequences in flashback of a group of children that end up being the real monsters of this installment. Youngster Samuel Patrick Chu plays a character named Virgil that seems so vile that you can’t wait for Buster the Clown (William Forsythe) to take his vengeance. Along with fear of clowns, showing children being cruel is another way that Holland manages to gives us a type of primal experience, as bullies seem to be a part of so many lives that we can’t help but relate to these sequences.
On top of all that William Forsythe gives a tremendous performance, and is outstanding as both facets of Buster’s personality. The episode really gets you to sympathize with Buster as Forsythe lets this pitiful Ice Cream Man really come forth during the story’s flashback scenes. Forsythe really brings genuine warmth to this man, who stutters, and really only know happiness when he brings joy to these neighborhood kids. It’s that warmth in the flashbacks that makes his transformation into Buster as a monster truly frightening.
Helping also is the tremendous work by KNB, which again does credible CGI effects, but then blows us away with their makeup appliances. One sequence in this episode is the grossest yet produced by the series. A man literally melts in front of you piece by piece, and the results are pretty hard to watch.
Keeping the episode irony free, Tom Holland makes “We All Scream for Ice Cream” a success by knowing what he needs to focus on to make it work. This is by no means the best entry of the series, but it is far from the worst also. With consistent vision of direction behind the camera and good performances in front of it, this is one of the few Masters of Horror that manages to be greater than the sum of its parts.
The Video
Starz has done their usual good work on this disc. The picture is pretty crisp and never too dark to see what’s going on. The episode is presented in Anamorphic Widescreen with an aspect ratio of 1.78:1.
The Audio
The Audio track is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 and is also quite good. The mood is helped quite a bit by the audio quality here, as the sound design is terrific throughout.
Audio Commentary by Director Tom Holland and Writer David Schow – This is a solid commentary track with Holland and Schow keeping the tidbits coming the entire episode. They especially get excited about the “Melting” scene, and talk on end about how the physical effects really help the sequence in a way that CGI never could.
Sweet Revenge: The Making of We All Scream for Ice Cream – This Featurette goes about 13 minutes and features interviews with everyone from Director Tom Holland to Production Designer David Fischer about the making of this episode. They spend a lot of time with William Forsythe in this Featurette, and he gets simply one compliment after another from the makeup artists to the other actors. It really seems like Forsythe was the only actor who could play this role.
Melt Down: The Scoop on the Visual and Make-up Effects – In this Featurette and they interview Visual Effects artist Lee Wilson about the different CGI shots in the episode. This goes about 7 minutes.
Trailers – You get trailers for every episode of Masters of Horror, as well as the movie Hatchet.
Text/Photo Gallery
Storyboards
