Georg Csarmann

Kelsey Bollig’s Kickstart My Heart starts out with a bang! Immediately pulling the viewer into the narrative, with a particularly startling kind of jump scare, the short continually builds on that inherent tension for the rest of its 14-minute duration.

Following a gruesome accident, a young woman named Lilly has to fight for her life, on more than one level. After she wakes up in her bed, the film’s pace slows down and at first it seems like this will be a story about the aftermath of a severe injury. Only moments later do we find out what is actually at stake: Lilly will have to fight evil creatures inside an apartment that doubles as a mixture between purgatory and a sort of coping-mechanism manifested as a delusion in her own mind. Lily literally has to confront her demons, and only if she manages to overcome the frightening foes and obstacles in front of her, will she get a chance to return to reality. But does she have the necessary strength and willpower to do so?

Kickstart My Heart finds a successful balance between kick-ass action, blended with horror elements, and the necessary emotional weight to keep the story moving forward and give enough space for the characters to develop during slower passages. The camera work and quick cuts inject the necessary rhythm and intensity to put us right there, with Lilly, during the fight scenes, while the sudden flashes of x-ray shots are ravishingly effective in driving home the sense of pain the protagonist is feeling. The way Kickstart My Heart is framed and edited, the staging imitates the disorientation Lilly must feels in the desperate situation she finds herself.  

A blood-stained Emma Pasarow as Lilly, a woman fighting for life after a devastating accident.

Sharing insights about the production process with S/W, Kelsey Bollig revealed that her stunt coordinator Joshua Mabie was also the camera operator for the film, which she says was a shortcut she highly recommends to all indie action directors. An interesting piece of advice, especially if you consider that this was her first action film. 

There are various elements in Kickstart My Heart that reminded me of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which is a high compliment in my book. From the character design of the villainous monsters, which are simultaneously creepy and slightly ludicrous, to the well-choreographed fight scenes. The combination of these elements with real sentimental stakes, even allowing a knowing wink to its own entertainment factor, are qualities it shares with the much-loved series. 

I have to admit that I find that the character of a cute, wise-beyond-his-years kid is always hard to pull off and takes some getting used to, but first-time actor Cooper Alexander does a fine job in playing the part. That said, the clear standout here is Emma Pasarow as Lilly, who gives it her all to convincingly drive home both the action scenes and the emotional nuances of Kickstart My Heart. It’s an almost surreal feeling that a film can be this touching, during a scene in which the main actress’ face is covered in ghoulish blood.

By examining what it feels like to keep on fighting without succumbing to exhaustion and despair, Bollig’s short, within its action-packed framework, asks interesting questions of its heroine, and in effect of us. While the film works on its own merit, it becomes even more interesting once you realize that the idea was inspired by the filmmaker’s own experiences, after she was run over by an SUV in 2019, breaking 30 bones and lacerating her spleen and liver. She and her VFX supervisor Matthew DuVall (Deadpool, Star Trek Beyond) even decided to use and animate the actual x-rays from her accident for the sequences in the film.

“The process of making this film helped me remember the beauty of my own life”

Kickstart My Heart is a short that makes it worthwhile to stay around for the credits. As we get to see snapshots of Bollig’s recovery, in the aftermath of the accident, we get to appreciate the film with additional layers. Bollig has clearly put her own struggles on screen in an abstract way, but the act of making the film itself seems to have been a cathartic experience for the writer/director. As she explains, “The darkness I fought through to recover from my accident was the same darkness I revisited in making this film. In many ways, the process of making this film helped me remember the beauty of my own life.”

Bollig’s real life story, and her short, are life-affirming testaments to the power of defiance in the face of seemingly insurmountable adversity. As the director puts it perfectly herself, “What looks like a quiet, personal journey to health on the outside is a chaotic battle on the inside. After going through this accident, I couldn’t help but want to put a face to this type of pain and in doing so, I’d put a face to the healing.” In the process of sharing the film with audiences, Bollig has found connection with viewers who approached her to share their own “stories about physical trauma, heartbreak, loss, and all the things we all eventually encounter.”

Bollig is currently in development of a feature version of Kickstart My Heart, directed an episode of Amazon Prime series Hunters and is attached to direct a film called BREEDERS, starring Olivia Cooke and produced by Adam McKay.