Eli Roth Launches The Horror Section With $5.5 Million Ice Cream Man Release

Q: Why did Eli Roth secretly use AI in his new ultra-violent horror film after claiming the animation was done entirely by hand?

Eli Roth used AI in *Ice Cream Man* because he says it helped realize his visual ideas on a tightly budgeted independent film, even though he had initially described the key animation as hand-drawn. After telling Polygon that the Fleischer-style cartoon sequence was created from drawings he made himself with help from animators, Roth later acknowledged he had “misspoke.” He said generative AI was used in “a very small portion of a few scenes” and called it “an opportunity where technology and creativity came together to help bring my vision for the film to life.” The reversal came after viewers and early reviewers noticed the credit for Dark Half, an AI visual-effects company, and began questioning how much of the film relied on AI. Roth has not publicly detailed exactly which shots were AI-assisted or how the tool was used beyond saying its role was limited. The episode is notable because Roth had been presenting *Ice Cream Man* as an uncompromised return to handmade, boundary-pushing horror outside the studio system. But the film was also produced on a modest budget of about $5.5 million, financed through presales and tax credits, which may have increased pressure to use cheaper or faster digital tools for select sequences. So the short answer is that Roth appears to have used AI as a limited production aid to achieve specific effects while controlling costs, then only clarified that after public scrutiny exposed the discrepancy with his earlier account.

3 articles · Updated · Variety · Aug 4

$5.5 million horror film “Ice Cream Man” will open Aug. 7 as the first release from Roth’s 2025-founded company, The Horror Section, bypassing studios and arriving unrated.
Foreign pre-sales and Canadian tax credits financed most of the budget, while Roth plans only a few million dollars in marketing and a roughly 45-day theatrical run.
Roth said the move answers frustrations with studio interference after 2024’s “Borderlands,” where PG-13 cuts diluted his vision, and with streaming-era economics that eroded residual income.
The company aims to release two to four low-budget horror films a year, with “Stiletto” due this fall and “Don’t Go in That House, Bitch!” with Snoop Dogg next in production.
If “Ice Cream Man” grosses $6 million to $8 million in theaters, Roth expects it to be profitable and to preserve long-term ownership of the underlying IP.