10 Horror Movies That Stick The Landing
8. The Vanishing
Spoorloos is the original Dutch name for the 1988 movie The Vanishing. It literally means "Without a Trace" and it's a good summary of this utterly wicked venture.
A young couple, Rex (Gene Bervoets) and Saskia (Johanna ter Steege), are on a road trip when they stop to buy supplies from a petrol station. After waiting in the car for a very long time, Rex goes to investigate and finds that his beloved has... well... vanished.
This sparks a frantic search that consumes Rex for the next three years. The kidnapper, a man named Raymond (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu), taunts his poor victim by sending him hopeful postcards promising to release Rex's beloved if he follows his instructions.
The finale to The Vanishing is horrible and twisted in the best possible way.
Raymond finally confronts Rex and, having broken his mind over the course of multiple torturous years, convinces him that the only way he can know what happened to Saskia is to experience it himself. Desperate to be with her again, Rex drinks a cup of drugged coffee and wakes up in a box underground, condemned to die in the same way as his missing lover.