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The Vanishing Reviews

A film that is literally blood chilling. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Aug 4, 2023

The ending itself fulfills its pledge as one of the most terrifying films ever made – and it’s done without any blood spilled.

Full Review | Feb 22, 2023

Kubrick considered Sluizer's The Vanishing a truly terrifying film, and its power is in its unsettling simplicity as it explores the potency of its nightmare scenarios.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 3, 2020

Sluizer isn't among the more original stylists, but the literalness of his direction suffices to evoke the horrific and monstrous possibilities lurking behind the façades of ordinary life.

Full Review | Oct 30, 2020

..a wonderful thriller which deserves to find a new audience..

Full Review | Jun 8, 2020

The recognition disturbs and terrifies.

Full Review | Oct 30, 2018

It's an elegant, riveting piece of filmmaking.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Aug 20, 2018

A superb, spine-tingling achievement in suspense cinema.

Full Review | Oct 19, 2016

Through some fiendish alchemy, The Vanishing manages to scare people out of their wits more effectively than a legion of better-known horror films.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 19, 2016

Sluizer inexorably and expertly draws us deeper into the mystery, exposing our own morbid curiosity in the process.

The Vanishing is about the power of the mind to propel its subjects along unbelievable trajectories, into risks beyond knowing, in a quest for the most disturbing of knowledge.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Oct 19, 2016

The appalling, horrific climax of The Vanishing will haunt your mind long after this film is over.

It's a film that functions on curiosity rather than real interest (given the fact that the characters are thinly drawn and largely unsympathetic), yet in the end punishes the audience for wanting to have its questions answered.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Oct 19, 2016

Sluizer adapted the film, but he takes a more non-linear approach than the book, which heightens the story at strategic moments to build suspense.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 22, 2014

The explanation is so darkly compelling-and ultimately so chilling-that The Vanishing has earned its reputation as one of the scariest non-horror movies ever made.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Oct 27, 2014

[VIDEO ESSAY] George Sluizer's spellbinding adaptation of Tim Krabb's horror novella "The Golden Egg" is such an expertly layered suspense thriller than it serves as a textbook archetype of the genre.

Full Review | Original Score: A+ | Jun 4, 2014