Milo Cawthorne and Olivia Tennet: ‘Blood Punch’ Stars On What Makes The Film Stand Out Despite Its Budget

Milo Cawthorne and Olivia Tennet are no strangers to working together. Their recent film Blood Punch brought them back together along with their former Power Ranger RPM’s cast and crew. The Blood Punch cast consisted of Cawthorne and Tennet as well as Adelaide Kane (Reign), Ari Boylad, and Mike Ginn. It also marked a return to working with writer Eddie Guzelian and director Madellaine Paxson.

Cawthorne spoke with Inquisitr about how great it was to get back together with familiar faces albeit this time with a very different type of project.

It had been awhile since we had seen Ari and Adelaide, and also we were working with Eddie and Maddy again. We were all pretty excited to be doing something so different from Power Rangers, and everyone was onboard and very enthusiastic about doing the best they could.

When speaking with Inquisitr, Tennet was quick to explain that it didn’t take the cast and crew very long to pick up where they left off despite the two years (Blood Punch was shot in 2011) since some of them had worked together.

Actors are always having to form intimate relationships with people very quickly, so it was great to be working opposite Milo and Ari who I know so well, because it removed any awkwardness or self-consciousness. I think you can always tell in a film when actors have gotten on well or not; it’s actually quite hard to hide that even when you’re playing a character.

Blood Punch is a decidedly different story than Power Rangers RPM. Blood Punch is described as “a mind-blowing supernatural cycle of carnage and mayhem with no end…and no escape.” Despite the differences, Tennet spoke about why she chose this movie that paints her in a different light than the more light-hearted Power Rangers.

One morning in 2011 we received an email from Eddie, informing us that he’d written a thriller/horror film and would we want to be a part of it. Eddie wrote Blood Punch with the three of us in mind for those roles and that is so rare as an actor. It was incredibly flattering and so exciting to think that the parts had been tailored specifically for us.

I am mostly cast as a young, innocent girl so when I first read Blood Punch and the character of Skyler, I was very excited by the chance to play a character like nothing else I’d ever been considered for. It was also pretty nerve-wracking wondering if I’d actually be able to pull it off. Blood Punch had me hooked from beginning to end, and I was amazed by all the twists and turns.

Blood Punch has garnered critical acclaim from horror sites like Bloody-Disgusting and Dread Central. However, it has also had some good reviews from more main stream sites like the Hollywood Reporter. When asked just what has made critics enjoy this film so much, Milo Cawthorne talked about how the film keeps the audience on their toes.

I think one of the attractions of the film is that it’s unexpected, I didn’t expect a film called ‘Blood Punch’ to be so twisty and psychological. You go in with your expectations pretty low, and hopefully have those expectations met, or exceeded. I think the big strength of the film is the plot. It keeps you guessing, and tends to mess with old horror tropes, so there is that element of self-awareness.

It has taken Blood Punch another four years to finally hit video and video-on-demand services like Amazon and iTunes. Tennet talked about the process of bringing this film to viewers as opposed to films or television shows that might be backed by a studio or network.

When making a low-budget film you can’t use money to fix problems so it makes you very creative in your problem solving. We had some pretty massive challenges while making Blood Punch and it was amazing how everyone had to get involved and try to overcome them.

Cawthorne spoke of one particular problem that involved a set where the vast majority of the movie was to be filmed.

For example, the cabin we were gonna rent and shoot the film in was suddenly unavailable a few days out from shooting. On any other big project we probably wouldn’t have even heard about this, but on BP we were in the same room as Eddie when he gets the phone call and then we all have to scramble to find another place to film in.

Despite the budgets and the few problems, Blood Punch has been well received by the fans. It won the Austin Film Festival Dark Matter Audience Award. It also won Best Feature at the Hoboken Film Festival. Paxson picked up the Best Director Award at the Hoboken Festival as well. That’s not too bad for a film made four years ago by actors used to playing superheroes and a creative team who cut their teeth on Disney animated features.

What do you think of Cawthorne and Tennet’s performances in Blood Punch? Does the darker side of a Power Ranger appeal to you? Let us know below.

A special thanks goes to Milo Cawthorne and Olivia Tennet for taking the time out from the promotion of the film to speak with us.

[Photo by Midnight Releasing]