A young man becomes trapped by his own morbid curiosity when his girlfriend mysteriously disappears, leading him to meet another man with another grim obsession.
When a young Dutchman discovers that his girlfriend has gone missing during their return to Holland from a bicycling trip in France, he begins a three-year search that forms the basis of this unsettling psychological thriller from 1988, originally titled Spoorloos. The missing woman's whereabouts remain a mystery, but the film provides an early introduction to her abductor, a seemingly normal family man whose domestic tranquility hides a meticulous, methodical madness. As the despondent husband advertises all over France and Holland for his missing wife, this game of cat-and-mouse escalates into a strategy of psychological horror, revealing certain facts and merely suggesting others to create an intense atmosphere of dread and anticipation. A film that Alfred Hitchcock would certainly have admired, The Vanishing leads to an unforgettable conclusion that's sure to send chills down your spine. Ironically, this film's director, George Sluizer, also made the inferior 1993 American remake starring Kiefer Sutherland and Jeff Bridges. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Rating:
Summary: the tunnel at the end of the light
Comment: This movie is like black ice--cold, dark, and bloodless. It is also one of my favorite films, as well as one of the most terrifying and psychologically disturbing I have ever seen. DO NOT watch this movie when depressed. Sluizer is absolutely merciless. But this story of obsession and destruction is both thought and emotion provoking, and one that will stay with you for a long, long time. Don't even waste your time on the American version--it is inferior in every way.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: The tension Vanished too
Comment: Without giving any spoilers, I'll say that the ending was a major disappointment. The girl's abductor is identified very early in the movie and, although his sociopathic nature as it is revealed through the course of the film is unnerving, the ending is hardly "a genuinely chilling finale". By the time the film wraps up, you're expecting something to happen, and when it does, you're left asking "That was it?" In fact, reading the blurb on the back of the box (or here on Amazon) pretty much tells you all you need to know about the film.

For me, there was virtually no suspense or tension after the girl's abduction. There was very little of Hitchcock in this film. If you're looking for a foreign film with Hitchcock style and a truly unnerving ending, try Les Diabolique (the original version, not the Hollywood remake).

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Customer Rating:
Summary: One of the most terrifying, unsettling films ever...
Comment: This is arguably one of the most haunting, terrifying, and chilling films ever made. It is generally classified as a horror film, but it goes far beyond being a simple horror film. There are no real scares, there is no gore, but a deep, unsettling vibe that leaves you uneasy for the rest of your life whenever you think of this film.

It concerns itself with a man named Rex who is on vacation with his girlfriend. They fight (at a European rest stop), they make up, she goes in to get some beverages, but never returns. Rex becomes obsessed with finding his lost girlfriend, and the obsession goes on for years. The man who is "responsible" for her disappearance sees Rex on a TV show, feels sorry for him, and decides to tell him who he is. Enough of the plot, the rest is yours.

This film still gives me the shivers, and yet it's not overtly scary. Perhaps because it finds its horror in every day life is why it's so unsettling. It's one of the best thrillers ever made, and it becomes more terrifying (and plausible) ever time you see it. The twists and turns of the plot are believable, and George Sluzier's direction is never flashy or draws attention to itself, enhancing the horror of the film. Simply one of the best horror/thrillers ever made.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Without a Trace
Comment: "The Vanishing" is a classic horror film. A young man loses his girlfriend during vacation. For three years, he is obsessed with finding her. He posts her picture all over Europe, goes to the police... and can't find her. Then he meets up with a stranger,an amiable family man who's unnaturally obsessed with the young man's loss. Thus begins an eerie cat and mouse game. It's not the usual torture-and-gore flick we've become accustomed to. It's about the horrors of the human mind. The ending will scare you, chill your bones, and break your heart. "The Vanishing" does not disappear from your memory.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Magnificient Obsession
Comment: In a perfect world, a viewer planning on seeing this film for the first time would not be aware of its by-now famous ending. It is a testament to everyone involved in the making of this movie, that knowing the ending does not spoil, in the least, that first viewing experience. Truly, this is one film in which the 100 minute buildup is as satisfying and quietly thrilling as the utterly horrifying ending, itself.

What a buildup it is. Alfred Hitchcock, who turned American Everyman James Stewart into a fascinating (and altogether believable) character study in obsession in Vertigo, his masterpiece, would have praised this film to the heavens. Like Vertigo, The Vanishing is a quiet, deliberate, slow moving affair, in which we first become gradually drawn into Rex's building guilt and torment over the whereabouts of his missing girlfriend, Saskia, who literally disappeared under his nose. During his 3 year quest to find her, we begin to learn more and more about the quiet professor who abducted Saskia. When the 2 men ultimately meet, Rex's first impulse is to kill the man who has turned his life upside down; but he can't, because he simply has to know exactly what this man did to Saskia - there's that "obsession" word again. Rex knows this man has killed his girlfriend, and, while fully aware he is sealing his own fate, as well, nonetheless agrees to the killer's terms at the film's conclusion: if you want to finally learn what happened to Saskia, the girl who vanished under your watch, you have to experience exactly what she did. And boy does he ever.

Although not all American remakes of European films are botched-up disasters (case in point: Insomnia, the fascinating Swedish suspense film, was made into a very credible character study/police procedural starring Al Pacino and Robin Williams), please avoid the American remake of The Vanishing at all costs. Can you imagine a remake of Vertigo, where Kim Novak, falling to her death from the bell tower at the film's conclusion, is saved at the last second by a fortuitously placed life net? Well, there in a nutshell is the ending of the American version of The Vanishing, and for the life of me, I can't believe the same director made both films.

Another praiseworthy release from Criterion, and very highly recommended.

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