Groundhog Day takes a wild, meth-induced bloody ride in Blood Punch (my new favorite movie), a horror comedy written by Ethan Pines. This film starts out hard and never lets up – bringing us hilarity and death, murder and mayhem, sex and blood, meth and peyote, carnage and deserts, snarkiness and more snark – this is indie horror filmmaking at its finest. Seriously. Why wasn’t I in this movie?? (Oh yeah. Current status: somewhere in the woods of Alabama, far from civilization…*sighs*) You guys are gonna LOVE this one though (specially you, E.!).

So what we have is this:

A young man is lured into a dangerous love triangle that begins to take a series of shocking and grisly supernatural turns.

(Although for those more on the squeamish side, it’s really not as grisly as they make it sound. There’s tons of death but the majority of it isn’t graphic. That said, for those who enjoy blood soaked…um, bloodiness(?)…there’s a great scene featuring that which I particularly enjoyed. 😉 )

Milton is this super smart dude who got busted cooking meth and is in drug court ordered rehab. There he meets Skyler (whom I now aspire to be like) – an incredibly snarky, kinda bitchy, but ultimately sexy gal – who desperately needs him to help her and her boyfriend out with a meth cooking job. A BIG one. If he agrees, he gets to break out of rehab that night and gets a sweet payday on top of it – all for a one day job. Tiny little catch…Skyler’s boyfriend is a psychopath. No really. Dude is the devil himself (as Skyler says). An entirely terrifying yet strangely charming (at times) psychopathic devil. Lemme tell you, Ari Boyland walks a very fine line here playing Russell, and he tiptoes across that edge like a BOSS. Since this IS a horror movie, Milton takes the gig only to find out just how truly sadistic Russell is and how caught up in Russell’s web Skyler is. And then from there, things just get…well, hilariously bad.

One of the great things about this film is HOW we’re seeing things play out – via flashback. Not just any ordinary flashback though. Nope, Milton wakes up one morning to find a video message from himself in the bathtub explaining the whole situation. It’s truly fabulous. As are the various ways that people get killed off in this film. I mean, if you live to die another day, again and again and again and again…like, really how many ways are there to kill someone? These guys are determined to find out and some ways are truly inventive. So to sum up – 3 kids (okay, college kids but still) trying to work out why they’re repeatedly dying, repeatedly killing each other, trying to escape, and all while sitting on one freaking HUGE pile of meth. Oh, and there might be a romantic squabble or two in there. Super easy sitch to control. It’ll be fine. They got this.

Milo Cawthorne as Milton is great. He’s the perfect blend of confused, edgy, pissed off, longing, scared that’s required here, and is funny as hell. He and Olivia Tennet as Skyler have excellent chemistry, playing off each other extremely well, with their quip delivery on fleek. SO MUCH SNARK. It was like I died and went to heaven. *sighs* Olivia also had the job of making a not so likable character, a sympathetic one, which she did with great aplomb. There were times I wanted to hate her but I could only just say, “You’re a jerk and I’m not talking to you right now. So there.” and then made up with her, like, two minutes later. That was REALLY annoying in that one part when she did that one thing that was just all UGH, you know? 😉

Random aside: Apparently, the majority of these actors were all on some Power Rangers show (RPM??). I’m too old to have gone through a Power Rangers phase but ya know, if you’re not old and decrepit like myself and were totes into PR, then you get the added bonus of nostalgia. Just FYI. 🙂

Guys, this movie is kickawesome. We need more well made, SMART movies like this one, especially in this genre. If you wanna check it out (and you know you wanna – right, E.?), the link’s up there at the top. You can also check ’em out on Facebook if you wanna get in touch. Ugh. So fucking good. I’d hate for you to miss out…