It takes a hell of a movie to scare the director of ‘The Shining.’
The Big Picture
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The Vanishing
explores existential dread and the trauma of loss without relying on gore or jump scares, creating a haunting psychological thriller. - Director George Sluizer’s film leaves viewers questioning their own levels of obsession and the potential evil lurking beneath normal facades.
- The film’s terrifying lack of resolution and influence on legendary director Stanley Kubrick make it a must-watch for horror fans seeking psychological depth.
Violent deaths, spewing blood, and killers in masks are terrifying and incredibly important niches in the horror genre. When you think about horror, these explicit motifs are usually the first to come to mind. However, there is a more harrowing topic of terror that everyone can relate to, and everyone can agree that it is horrifying, and that is existential dread. In 1988, director George Sluizer released the widely influential horror film The Vanishing, which tackles the topics of existential dread, kidnapping, and living with the trauma of loss. How do you carry on when the one you love is missing and presumed dead? That’s the viewpoint that The Vanishing takes, and it is a doozy.
The Vanishing doesn’t feature any gore or gross-out scenes to make you uncomfortable and scared. Instead, Sluizer creates a devastating story that has the viewer questioning what they would do if their loved one suddenly disappeared one day. How far would you go to know what happened to them? How long would the loss haunt you and pull at the seams of all aspects of your life? If you have trouble being vulnerable, watching The Vanishing will give you more reason to keep that part of you locked away to protect your heart. And if that wasn’t enough to get you interested in the film — it had such an impact on legendary director Stanley Kubrick that he immediately rang up Sluizer to tell him it was the most terrifying film he had ever seen.
The Vanishing (1988)
In this suspenseful film, a young man’s life turns into a relentless search for his missing girlfriend after she vanishes without a trace at a rest stop. His investigation eventually brings him face-to-face with the cunning individual responsible, unveiling a disturbing psychological game.
- Release Date
- October 27, 1988
- Director
- George Sluizer
- Cast
- Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu , Gene Bervoets , Johanna ter Steege , Gwen Eckhaus , Pierre Forget
- Main Genre
- Thriller
What Is ‘The Vanishing’ About?
The Vanishing is a Dutch film that originally went by Spoorloos, which translates into “without a trace.” In the film, Rex (Gene Bervoets) and Saskia (Johanna ter Steege) travel through France while on vacation. When their car runs out of gas, the two stop off to refuel. While there, Rex and Saskia are talking about being abandoned, and Saskia shares that she is nervous that Rex will leave her and their love will die. He swears to Saskia he will never abandon her, and the two bury coins near a tree to symbolize their togetherness. Saskia then enters the gas station to grab a drink — but shenever returns. Unlike many abduction films, we see who the abductor is before the finale. After Saskia’s disappearance, we witness Raymond (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu) buying an empty house, purchasing chloroform, and planning to get women into the car with him. In Saskia’s case, he pretends to be injured to lure her into his snare.
Three years after Saskia’s disappearance, there are no leads or traces of her, and Rex has silently dealt with that loss. He goes on television and expresses his desperation for wanting to know what happened to her, which prompts Raymond to come forward. Raymond will divulge what happened to her if Rex suffers the same fate. Rex obliges after digging up the coins he and Saskia buried, then drinks a drugged coffee from Raymond. The next thing he knows, Rex wakes up and realizes he is buried alive. The film ends with Raymond and his wife and kids enjoying the beautiful outdoors and reading a newspaper about the double disappearance of Rex and Saskia as he sits right above where he buried them.
What Makes ‘The Vanishing’ So Terrifying?
The Vanishing features one of the most disturbing endings to a film, so much so that Stanley Kubrick spoke with Sluizer and named it one of the most terrifying films he’s seen. In the interview with the Criterion, Sluizer mentions that Kubrick was a huge fan of the film and saw it about 10 times. The two all-star directors spoke on the phone and broke down The Vanishing shot for shot and Kubrick ended the call by saying how he felt it was the most terrifying film he had ever seen in his life. Sluizer wanted to be tongue-in-cheek, so he asked Kubrick if he had ever seen The Shining. Kubrick told Sluizer that The Shining, one of the most influential horror films in history, was child’s play compared to The Vanishing. It’s quite the full-circle moment since Sluizer recounted in the same interview that he could not get international attention to the film as no English-speaking distributor wanted to handle it. It wasn’t until a last-minute entry into the Sydney Film Festival that English-speaking audiences started to take notice of Sluizer’s film.
Stanley Kubrick Only Won One Oscar — And Not in a Category You’d Expect
A well-deserved, yet singular accolade.
There is no resolve, peace, or happy ending in The Vanishing; only sad emptiness exists. What makes the film so scary is what typically makes another horror film less scary, and that is its lack of mystery. There is no guessing who the killer is or what will happen because we are shown who Raymond is from very early on, yet tension is still high from trying to figure out what exactly happened. Rex is obsessed with finding out what happened to Saskia, and the fact that he is willing to forgo the justice of turning in her killer and instead seek knowledge of what happened to her shows the level of obsession trauma can hold over us.
Another aspect of The Vanishing that is both astonishing and bone-chilling is how normal and mundane Raymond seems. He seamlessly blends in as a perfect husband, father, and teacher, but beneath his collected exterior is an incredibly calculated and devoid-of-emotion psychopath. Raymond doesn’t harm anyone because he is compelled to or full of rage; rather, he just wants to prove he can. Sluizer’s film allows us to see every agonizing step of Raymond’s evil process, and the only thing we can do is wait for what he will do next. We get to see Raymond pull off the mask that he uses for his wife, kids, and the public to reveal his true self, holding chloroform, stalking his prey, and his inability to feel any remorse for what he is doing. The Vanishing is a peep-hole view of how casually some of the most evil people can blend in and make themselves appear normal. If you didn’t wonder about the true identity of strangers around you before, you will every time you lock eyes with them after watching this film.
How Did ‘The Vanishing’ Influence Other Horror Films?
The Vanishing is truly one of a kind, which is why the 1993 remake of the same name fell flat with audiences. Starring Sandra Bullock, Jeff Bridges, and Kiefer Sutherland, the 1993 remake decided to forgo the bleak and hopeless ending and substitute it for one with more closure and a happy ending. While the beginning and middle of the story mimic each other almost scene by scene, the ending features Jeff (Sutherland) climbing out of his grave, killing Barney (Bridges), and accepting Diane’s (Bullock) death. One film that shares quite a few similarities to The Vanishing is Prisoners. While Prisoners take the viewpoint of abducted children, the focus is on the chase of finding out what happened and what a loved one would do in distress to find the answers they crave. Towards the end of Prisoners, Keller (Hugh Jackman) comes face to face with his daughter’s killer and is forced to suffer the same fate as his daughter. Keller ends up being placed in a deep hole on the killer’s property, seemingly without the possibility of being found. Both films focus on the anguish that loss can cause us and that sometimes, we will go to death for our loved ones.
Stanley Kubrick was known for having a meticulous eye for detail, so when he commends and praises a film, it holds a lot of weight. The Vanishing and The Shining share an eerily similar opening scene where we get a bird’s eye view of cars on the freeway, so maybe Kubrick was drawn in by a beloved style and stayed for the horrors that humanity can bring. Either way, we trust horror in the hands of Kubrick, so if you weren’t convinced to check out The Vanishing before, you should be now!
The Vanishing is available to rent on Amazon.
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This article was originally published on collider.com