I was lucky enough on Friday to catch a couple of movies as part of Grimmfest 2015, Grim Up North’s annual horror movie festival. There were a couple I’m sad to have missed (Blood Sucking Bastards, for one), but I did manage to catch two absolute stand-outs: He Never Died and Turbo Kid.

I can’t get the story and the concept of He Never Died out of my head. I won’t spoil it for you, but it’s a very cool take on an existing concept (but most stories are, let’s be honest). It’s deadpan funny, and alternates between glorious violence and surprising realism. The characters’ un-Hollywood reactions to the situations they’re put in help drive the movie forward, but the bulk of the story is carried by Henry Rollins.

Yup, Henry Fucking Rollins. So awesome.

On the other side of pretty much every coin imaginable is Turbo Kid, a candy-coloured apocalypse wherein things are bad, dangerous, and endearingly Canadian. If you grew up watching movies like La Guerre de Tuques or The Peanut Butter Solution, you’ll feel instantly at home with the low-budget production values and the ‘we-shot-this-in-a-quarry-’cause-it-was-all-we-could-afford-with-the-provincial-grant’ kinda feel. If you’ve never seen that type of movie (or, more accurately, if you were never shown those movies during French class in the 80’s ‘cause your teacher was hung over, bored, or in some kind of labour dispute with school management), you will become 17% more Canadian with every viewing, guaranteed.

They’re both really exciting stories and for hugely different reasons. He Never Died unrolls slowly, hinting at salient plot points, fostering a liking for the main character, Jack, and throwing up the occasional flash of sharp, hard violence. You feel for Jack, and regret the situation he finds himself in. He’s no innocent, but you know that what’s going on isn’t entirely his fault (okay, that’s not exactly true, but we like him enough to rationalise away his part in all this).

Turbo Kid, however,  is one big, shiny bloodbath. It doesn’t look it from the posters, but there are scenes of wall-to-wall comic gore, and it’s funny as hell. Here, the main character is a kid – The Kid, actually – and he’s forced to survive in a world that’s evil, mercurial, and just plain out to get him. There’s peril and pathos a-plenty, but it’s mostly just one big earnest trip around a broken-down world with bad guys on BMXes and blood everywhere and a cool grown-up cowboy dude and the bad guy’s Michael Ironside! And there’s, like, flying circular saw blades? And there’s this girl with gold boobies? And who doesn’t like gold boobies*?! It’s SO AWESOME!

*Nobody doesn’t like gold boobies; not even super-peppy Laurence Leboeuf, who appears to be the unholy reincarnation of Jem (sans Holograms, mais avec Massive Drug Tolerance).

They’re both great stories, because fundamentally, it’s our involvement and investment in a story that make it unforgettable. We care about Jack and Apple and The Kid, and we’re scared for them in the face of low-rent gangsters and evil henchmen on bicycles. We’re compelled to cheer for them, and we hope against hope, even as things turn progressively to shit, that everything’s gonna turn out okay. It’s how a story affect us that makes it great.

Despite the additional bells and whistles a non-book format often carries – a celebrity actor or hilariously 80’s soundtrack, f’rinstance – a great story is at the heart of every movie, and great stories are worth getting excited about, wherever you may find them.

Turbo Kid is available to rent or buy online in the UK; He Never Died will be available to purchase on DVD from the end of December. How do I know, you ask?

@LaurieWhiteley you will be able to at the end of December

— He Never Died (@HeNeverDied) October 3, 2015

And here’s where the titular No Chill comes in:

@HeNeverDied OH MY GOD, THAT IS THE BEST NEWS I’VE HEARD ALL DAY. (And yes, the caps lock were completely necessary.)

— Laurie Whiteley (@LaurieWhiteley) October 3, 2015

Yup. Zero chill, zero shame. (Please note: they favourited my last tweet, so nyah.)

P.S – Over the course of the week, I also saw The Martian and re-watched Mad Max: Fury Road, wherein I love the barren wasteland as a character in its own right (in both cases), but that’s a whole ‘nother rant.

P.P.S – On second thought, just go see The Martian. It’s pretty fucking awesome. I’m still a bit Laurence Leboeuf over it, actually.