The Vanishing DVD – Lucille Glenn, Bernadette Le Saché

Please note this is a region 2 DVD and will require a region 2 or region free DVD player in order to play Product Description This is the original version (as opposed to the Hollywood remake) of George Sluizer&39;s masterpiece and is regarded as one of the best suspense thrillers ever made Based on the novel The Golden Egg by Tim Krabbe The Vanishing is the ultimate tribute to Alfred Hitchcock with the ending to prove it Whilst touring in France a young couple (Rex and Saskia) stop for a break at a roadside service station Saskia leaves Rex to browse around the shops and vanishes leaving no clues as to her whereabouts   Original theatrical trailer  Director s filmography  Picture gallery

Rex, a Dutch man, spends three years searching for his girlfriend, Saskia, after she vanishes from a French service station. Suddenly Saskia’s kidnapper makes contact with him, tentatively offering answers to the mystery. Director George Sluizer also remade this film in 1993 for Hollywood, starring Jeff Bridges and Kiefer Sutherland.

It’s not unusual for Hollywood to remake European hits. What is unusual is the director of the original getting the chance to helm the new version with an American cast, which is what happened with this film based on an intensely creepy Dutch film of the same name (both directed by George Sluizer). Kiefer Sutherland and Sandra Bullock are on vacation when, while stopped at a crowded rest area, she disappears. He devotes the next several years to discovering what happened to her, ruining his life in the process. When he does get a clue, it leads him to Jeff Bridges, who plays a bizarre and highly organized individual whose motives are almost as strange as he is. Bridges is spooky, but Sluizer ultimately is undone by Hollywood’s demand for a happy ending, which makes this film affecting but far less unsettling than the original. –Marshall Fine