10 Movie Moments Where You Had No Idea What Was Going To Happen Next
3. Rex Meets With Raymond - The Vanishing
The 1988 dutch thriller The Vanishing chronicles the obsessive efforts of Rex (Gene Bervoets) to track down his girlfriend Saskia (Johanna ter Steege) who disappears from a rest stop during their vacation three years prior.
The chilly genius of George Sluizer's film is that it deals with Saskia's kidnapper, Raymond (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu) in uncommonly upfront terms, rather than concealing his identity for a third-act plot twist.
Rex becomes increasingly besotted with finding out what happened to Saskia, such that Raymond eventually reaches out to him, with the two finally meeting in person at the climax.
Raymond then offers to show Rex what happened to Saskia, but only if he agrees to drink drugged coffee and experience exactly what she did.
Rex, consumed by his obsession, reluctantly agrees, while the audience is left squirming at the possibilities of what misfortune may befall Rex.
And so comes the film's wildly unpredictable climax - Rex wakes up buried alive in a coffin, destined to die the same lonely, prolonged death that his lost love did, all while Raymond returns to his blissfully unaware family.
Just make sure to give the 1993 remake, bizarrely directed by Sluizer himself, a wide berth, given that it reworks the climax to keep the popcorn-munchers happy - the Rex equivalent (Kiefer Sutherland) lives, while the serial killer character (Jeff Bridges) dies.