Blood Punch

Breaking Bad never made murder this much fun! This innovative, intelligent thriller dark comedy with a dash of sci fi traps its characters in a never ending story full of false leads and false endings that takes the audience along for the ride. In a story that's nothing but twists, the audience finds itself trapped in the same puzzle as its characters, and even ways out are not what they seem.

The clever premise is misleadingly straightforward: Femme fatale Skyler gets herself sent to rehab to recruit a crystal meth cook, where she meets college boy chemistry student Milton who got busted for running his own meth lab. Skyler has her hands on 100 lbs of pseudoephedrine and has one day to make it into meth for a multimillion dollar payday. Well actually, her boyfriend Russell has the pseudo. And Russell's psychotic. With trust issues. But on the plus side, he has a plan to break them out and a secluded cabin for the cook. Yet it turns out that making the meth is easy. Getting back out and cashing in on the payday--that's the hard part, a dilemma the characters struggle endlessly to resolve.

What makes the storytelling so much fun is that the audience knows from the beginning that in this somewhat conventional storyline, nothing is what it seems, sharing in the characters' bewilderment to figure out what's really going on. The story starts on the morning of the cook, where Milton finds a video he's already made to explain to himself what's really going on. As he unravels the mystery of his own circumstances, the characters are trapped together and the audience is trapped with them.

Filmmakers Paxson (director) and Guzelian (writer) are a husband-and-wife team who've built their resumes in Los Angeles developing Disney entertainment. They wanted to make a movie of their own and for it to be a departure. They met the cast in New Zealand while filming a season of the Power Rangers. A group collaboration from the beginning, Guzelian wrote the story with input from Paxson, specifically for their New Zealand friends. Filmed in three locations around Los Angeles, the film has an indy feel, limited budget but professionally produced with substance (story and characters) over flash. Tennet plays Skyler with layers of subtlety, and Cawthorne portrays Milton's evolving confusion convincingly, a nerd who's made bad life decisions. Boyland can't quite portray Russell to be as deeply psychotic as he's supposed to be; the actor seems like just too nice of a guy. Special mention to Holloway who took the over-the-top Archer and even went beyond that.

I like straight up horror movies and generally don't go for horror/comedy mixes like this one. But Blood Punch keeps the comedy kind of low key - much moreso than the popular Evil Dead. I just watched Blood Punch last night and enjoyed it very much. I usually put something on Amazon Prime to go to sleep -- but this movie kept me up too late!

The actors are good and I thought Ari Boyland was very good as the psychopathic Russell. He reminds me of a young Kurt Russell. Olivia Tennet is also very good as the brash and seductive leading lady.

The story is crazy and makes you wonder how they think these things up. But the movie is done well in a way that is both entertaining and suspenseful. I really found myself wondering how our protagonists were going to get out of their very unusual situation.

I won't go into particulars but the twisted plot requires a great deal of bloodshed. So much that it might be too much. I don't mind gory horror but the repetitive brains-getting-blown-out is the only facet of this movie that irritated me at all. Otherwise a great effort. Congratulations to the filmmakers.

Groundhog Day meets John Dies at the End. OK the plot was nothing like JDatE, but the tone really reminded me of that film.

Refreshing (if not entirely original) premise with characters that grew to be likeable after a rocky start.

Mostly good acting and great cinematography.

Ultimately pretty silly, but well worth giving your time to if you are in the mood for a light hearted horror evening.

This is a very well done time loop movie that I was pretty impressed with considering that they were obviously doing it on a budget. The acting is not up to hollywood par but the storytelling and other aspect of film making are pretty much there. I really love time loop movies and have seen a lot of them, and this is an especially good one. It is 1 hour and 45 minutes and in that time I felt like so much more time had gone by because so much happened in this movie. It is a very elaborate story that just keeps unfolding more and more and more as it goes on. I kept feeling like it was going to end soon and then checking to see how much time I had left. It is a very good story that keeps surprising you. It's also got a lot of entertaining killing in it, but it is not over-the top and ridiculous like a lot of b-movies. I'm giving this a good solid 7 here, and thats a hollywood rating, not a b-movie rating. If I was rating it in terms of b-movies it would be a 10. And if you love time loop movies its a must see.

After being caught cooking meth, a teen is sent to rehab. It is here that he meets a young beautiful girl who offers him a job. They go to a remote cabin with her boyfriend and third partner in their little drug scheme. Things go a little wrong for them when they begin to turn on each other. Things go from bad to worse when they find themselves caught in an old Native American curse. Now they must find a way to break free, or forever be dammed.

I was given this little indie flick by my uncle, who surprisingly sang its praises. So I went in with modest expectations and came out with a smile on my face, a sense of disappointment and a feeling of "I've seen this done better before".

Blood Punch has one aspect about the film that I would love to talk about, but feel that it would ruin the surprise. So I'm at odds here because this happens in the first act and the rest of the movie is wrapped around this plot device. It's nothing new or original, in fact it's been done to 'death'. Yet it's the inspired direction from Paxson that really gives Blood Punch a sense of accomplishment. The drama in the beginning takes a turn to black comedy once we arrive at the cabin. The film tries a balancing act and works for the most part, it's just that I didn't really find it too funny.

The genres this film mixes a fast and furious. There is even a action heavy shoot-out for crying out loud. This might make it seem like the film doesn't know what it wants to be, but I believe Paxson and crew knew exactly what they were doing here. An ode to some crazy Raimi/Coen Brothers hybrid of a film.

While interesting enough to keep my attention, bizarre enough for me to want to find out more. This is a film that I can't really see myself watching again anytime soon. I can't place my finger on it. The acting is serviceable to the story. The direction above what one can expect from a low-budget indie black comedy flick and the blood effects will make the horror fan smile. It simply feels like a precursor to something more, something bigger, something better down the road for the career of Paxson, if anything.