George Sluizer's terrifying 1988 horror-thriller follows a man, Rex (Gene Bervoets) who becomes obsessed after his girlfriend Saskia (Johanna ter Steege) disappears during a trip to a service station. Three years later, the assailant, Raymond (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu), finds himself fascinated with Rex's committed obsession to finding out what happened to Saskia, and agrees to meet him. What's so brilliant about The Vanishing is that it doesn't hide the villain behind a mask or leave viewers waiting for a plot twist: Sluizer deals with Raymond as a human being, and when audiences see how normal he is, the banality of his daily life makes him all the more frightening. There are no cartoonish bad guys here: just a believable human being with a bizarre, creepy hobby. Veering away from melodrama and over-the-top action, The Vanishing is instead a savagely down-to-Earth horror flick, one which nevertheless still serves up one hell of an ending. Best Moment: The highly disturbing twist ending, in which Raymond agrees to show Rex what happened to Saskia, but only if he agrees to go through the same experience as she did. Rex agrees to drink some drugged coffee, and when he wakes up, he's been buried alive, while Raymond presumably gets away with it all. The film was remade by Sluizer in 1993 with Jeff Bridges, Kiefer Sutherland and Sandra Bullock in the Raymond, Rex and Saskia roles. With its amended happy ending, however, it was universally viewed as a lame Hollywood remake and little more.
Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes).
General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.
