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Danny explores the approach to death in United 93, Only God Forgives and It Follows.

Directed by Paul Greengrass, United 93 was the story of the only flight of the four hijacked on the morning of September 11th 2001 not to reach its intended target. It's a strange, even unique film: as tough to piece together dramatically as it surely was psychologically. It felt like a film that had to be made, but one that would have been an affront made any other way than it was – stripped of the usual backstories and tearjerking.

Only God Forgives was directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, his follow-up to the much-loved Drive. This time, the response was what we would politely call divided, to a movie slick with Refn’s stylised bloodshed. It was operatic, even grand guignol. But it didn’t treat death as a excuse for a one-liner. For all its flamboyance, it was not unserious about death, each one taking place with a cause and effect, and a certain sense of ceremony.

At first glance, David Robert Mitchell's It Follows looks like that most mundane of things, the American suburban teenage horror movie, with a cast destined to be sliced, diced and forgotten. But it messes with every expectation. The boogeyman is an absolute unknown. Amorphous, motiveless. Without Its own body, It takes the shape of random people. All you know is that It comes for you. And It does want to kill you. It, surely, is actually just Death itself. The one thing we can’t outrun, however slow.

Death is the fourth part of Film Now with Danny Leigh: What the Hell Happened?, a series about film in the 21st century.

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