By John Noonan
New Zealand’s Milo Cawthorne is no stranger to genre filmmaking. You may recognise him from Jason Lei Howard’s Deathgasm, the blood-spattered spiritual sibling to Peter Jackson’s Brain Dead. If you’re a Stan subscriber, you’ll have seen him in Ash Vs The Evil Dead. The 27-year-old has now swapped the bloody undead for more spiritual horrors in the US timey wimey horror, Blood Punch; which sees Milo play a meth cook on one last job who, due to an ancient Native American curse, ends up reliving the same violent day over and over. “Groundhog Day meets Blood Simple,” Milo suggests when we ask how he would succinctly describe the film.
A vicious and grisly splatter-noir – that’s our term, but you can share it – Blood Punch’s roots are in a decidedly lighter but no less vicious media: children’s television. Specifically, Power Rangers RPM, a show that starred Milo (he was the green ranger for those who care to know) and his Blood Punch co-stars, Olivia Tennet and Ari Boyland. Madellaine Paxson, the director of Blood Punch, and its writer, Eddie Guzelian, also worked on the show, which is how the five met. So, where’s the direct route from punching robots to a film which sees two characters make love under a blood waterfall? “The direct line is in their heads,” Milo laughs. “They had been writing kids’ TV for a long time, and they felt restricted by that. Blood Punch was their way of saying, ‘We’ll do what we want, and no one can tell us to tone it down.’”
Cawthorne started off acting whilst in high school, doing sessions at The Northland Youth Centre in Whangarei. Having been a self-confessed “show-off kid”, acting was something that felt natural to him, and he started getting work early, but that came with its drawbacks. “It distorts your view of reality,” he admits about his early self. “I’d go away because I might get a small part in a TV show, come back to school, and I’d be like, ‘Man, this is bullshit! I don’t need the school scene.’ And then I got out of school, and I was like, ‘Okay. This is not as enjoyable as I thought it was going to be. The work is not as plentiful as I thought it would be.’”
Talking to Milo Cawthorne, he’s an extremely affable man who is engagingly open about his career (“I paint houses now in my off time with a good friend of mine”), and happy to regale you with tales of his days doing part time work in Auckland. Which is why it’s such a surprise when he admits to being nervous around strangers. Surprising because in a career like acting, you presumably cross paths with strangers regularly. “With acting, everything is laid out for you,” Cawthorne explains. “The lines are all prepared, and are ready for you to say. It’s what’s expected at the moment. I find myself quite awkward around meeting people for the first time. I find that’s quite a hard thing.”
Returning to Blood Punch, when you wipe away the viscus, there is, as hinted earlier, a film noir aesthetic at its core. In preparation for his role, Cawthorne was given homework by the film’s director and writer, sitting down to watch a couple of films that reflected the film’s disparate genres. One was Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity…and the other? “I was like, ‘Straw Dogs? What’s that?’ And they just said, ‘Oh, it’s just a cool film,’” Cawthorne laughs in hindsight. “They didn’t say anything apart from that Dustin Hoffman was a good character note. I watched it at night, by myself, and it got to the rape scene! It was the most effed up thing I’ve seen in my life.”
All productions come with their own issues, and Blood Punch was no exception. Three days before filming, the cabin which would be used for the majority of the film was discovered to have black mould in the kitchen, and was shut down for renovation. A quick rewrite, preceding an even quicker search for a new venue, and they were back on track. Filming only took a few weeks, and saw the rented accommodation take as much brunt of the film as the actors did. “There’s fake blood sprayed everywhere,” Cawthorne admits, “And we had these local caterers who were taking the fat from the bacon that they were cooking, and just pouring it onto the front step!”
So, whilst the cabin owner was probably happy to see the back of them (“If he’s reading this, the guy was lovely!”), at least they’d finished the film. Hadn’t they? “We’re like, ‘Well, thank God we got everything. No need to go back there again.’” Milo pantomimes, wiping the sweat from his brow, “And then we watch it, and Maddy is like, ‘Yeah, I think we’re going to need a couple more shots.’ So we got Ari to pretend to be American and ring again to hire the cabin!”
During the interview, we echo the thoughts of Deathgasm’s director, Jason Lei Howard, who, talking to us last year, said that he saw New Zealand stepping away from filming “kitchen sink dramas” and becoming more experimental in its output. For examples of that, see Houseguest or What We Do In The Shadows. Whilst Cawthorne’s experience with big productions is, by his own admission, minor, as we wrap up the interview, we ask him to share his thoughts on the country’s cinema. “It’s hard to say, because I wasn’t involved in the film community in the ‘80s. I was still learning how to be alive!” he laughs, before adding seriously, “but it feels exciting at the moment. There’s a lot of talent and drive around. Kiwi cinema is really surging ahead.”
Blood Punch will be screening in Melbourne on June 25 at The Backlot Studios (Doors 7:30pm / Show 8:00pm) and then in Sydney on Sunday July 3, 2:00pm at Frankies By The Slice and July 6 at 6:30pm at Trolley’d Flight Club. Following all screenings will be an audience Q&A with star, Milo Cawthorne. Blood Punch will be released on DVD on June 22.
