The Vanishing

Original title: Spoorloos

IMDb RATING

7.7/10

48K

YOUR RATING

POPULARITY

Play trailer1:33

Psychological Thriller Mystery Thriller

Rex and Saskia, a young couple in love, are on vacation. They stop at a busy service station and Saskia is abducted. After three years and no sign of Saskia, Rex begins receiving letters fro... Read allRex and Saskia, a young couple in love, are on vacation. They stop at a busy service station and Saskia is abducted. After three years and no sign of Saskia, Rex begins receiving letters from the abductor.Rex and Saskia, a young couple in love, are on vacation. They stop at a busy service station and Saskia is abducted. After three years and no sign of Saskia, Rex begins receiving letters from the abductor.

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.7/10

48K

YOUR RATING

POPULARITY

2,520

587

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 7 wins & 6 nominations

Trivia
Tim Krabbé, who wrote both the novel and the screenplay that was adapted from it, based the story on a newspaper article that he accidentally read about a female tourist who disappeared from a bus trip after buying chewing gum at a gas station in France. The police had searched for two nights without finding a trace of the girl. Ten years later, Krabbé did extensive research and found that the girl had turned up alive and well one day later; she had simply boarded the wrong bus. Krabbé even called her to thank her for providing him with the inspiration for the story.

Goofs
In the flashback near the end of the film when Raymond is talking to the old man near the coffee machine, the old man says he broke a bone in 1940 when he was eleven years old. Raymond states he then must be 59 years old in November, This makes that year 1988. But, at the beginning of the film when Rex is looking for Saskia you can hear the radio announcer talking about the Tour de France race that is happening and he says it is 1984.

Quotes
Raymond Lemorne: You start with an idea in your head, and you take a step... then a second... Soon, you realize you're up to your neck in something intense, but that doesn't matter. You keep at it for the sheer pleasure of it. For the pure satisfaction it might bring you.

Connections
Featured in Siskel & Ebert: Queens Logic/Run/Meet the Applegates/The Vanishing (1991)

User reviews268

Review

Featured review

The dry subject matter turns into the most horrific movie I have ever seen. Absolute genius.

This is not a token 10 out of ten to try and inflate the ratings for a movie I like. This is one of the few perfect movies I can honestly say I have ever seen.

I'm a huge horror fanatic and I put off seeing this despite it being recommended time and time again because the subject matter is so mundane. This move is the only horror move I have ever seen move that transcended scary to downright shocking to my very soul.

It was a very unique experience that no movie has ever duplicated before or since. Once it was over, i actually just sat there for about 10 minutes thinking about what I had just seen, it was only after pondering it for a bit that i realized that the pacing and just sheer implications of what i had just seen was probably the most disturbing and awful yet utterly brilliant and in a strange way beautiful thing I had ever seen because as others have stated, it couldn't have possibly ended any other way. The viewer won't want it to end any other way.

Through impeccable pacing and direction George Sluizer manipulates the viewer in a way I never thought could be possible, it would be criminal to spoil ANYTHING from this movie but I found myself in the same conundrum the protagonist Rex finds himself in at the ending and rooting something yet at the same time dreading to see it's result, but I must see. I can't think of any ending to any movie that was more fitting and a better conclusion than the ending of Spoorloos.

Fans of psychological horror, this more than anything is required viewing. I await the day that a film can make me feel the way this one did and frankly I doubt it will ever come.

Bravo, and shame on you George for the abysmal American and Americanized remake that absolutely ruined this movie for so many people I know. This movie is a masterpiece and half the people I know will never be able to enjoy it.