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Poster for The Vanishing

The Vanishing

Who Has Seen This Woman?

1988 · 1h 46m · Not Rated Mystery, Thriller
Directed by George Sluizer

Seen it?

Overview

Rex and Saskia, a young couple in love, are on vacation when they stop at a busy service station. Saskia is abducted in broad daylight and three years pass with no answers or closure surrounding her disappearance. Rex has nearly given up all hope when he suddenly begins receiving letters from her abductor.

Director and cast

Critics on Rotten Tomatoes

Top critics, in their words

All reviews
96%
Tomatometer
Fresh

Mr. Sluizer, whose direction has the spooky precision of nonfiction crime writing and whose matter-of-factness makes the characters seem quite real, builds a disturbing horror story from seemingly modest beginnings.

Janet Maslin, New York Times
Fresh

A brilliantly crafted intellectual thriller with a spring like a trap. It carries you down with it.

Hal Hinson, Washington Post
Fresh

Director George Sluizer unfolds his story with non-hysterical -- but nonetheless unnerving -- precision. Vanishing is refreshingly free of manipulative scenes involving running bath water, jagged-edge cutlery and bunnies in the saucepan.

Desson Thomson, Washington Post
Fresh

The movie advances in a tantalizing fashion, supplying information obliquely, suggesting as much as it tells, and everything leads up to a climax that is as horrifying as it is probably inevitable.

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
Fresh

Sluizer's direction is seamless throughout, effortlessly juggling domesticity and damnation as it ploughs inexorably towards an appaling denouement.

Time Out

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