Kickstart My Heart
2022 · 14m · USA
Directed by Kelsey D Bollig
Tones: dark, melancholic, tense
After a gruesome car accident leaves her near death, a young woman named Lilly must battle supernatural creatures through three levels of her own subconscious to survive — a visceral action-horror journey directly inspired by director Kelsey D. Bollig's real 2019 accident in which she broke 30 bones.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Autobiographical car-crash action-horror that uses the director's actual X-rays — the personal stake is real, but Deadpool comparisons and three levels of hell sounds exhausting. Mixed feelings.
Bollig animates her own X-rays from a 30-bone accident and closes with hospital recovery photos — autobiographical horror-action with a Buffy-and-Deadpool sensibility. The autobiography lifts what could be glib genre work.
Fourteen minutes incorporating the director's own X-rays from a real accident that broke 30 bones, animated by a Deadpool VFX supervisor and closing with real recovery photos — that autobiographical specificity gives the action-horror conceit unusual stakes. Buffy meets Deadpool is brand-name but the personal grounding is the differentiator.
Reviews
It's daring, creative, and uses every minute of its brief runtime to reel audiences in on its protagonist's journey. This is the kind of indie short worth celebrating year-round.
Plenty of art is derived from the artist's personal experiences. And even a life-threatening accident can be made into something surprisingly fun.
Festivals
- HollyShorts Film Festival 2022, Best Action Film
- Popcorn Frights Film Festival 2022, Grand Jury Award for Best Short
- Fighting Spirit Film Festival 2022, Best Director, Best International Short, Best Actress
- Fantastic Fest 2022
- Overlook Film Festival 2022
- Salem Horror Fest 2022