In 1988, Dutch filmmaker George Sluizer crafted one of the most harrowing psychological thrillers ever made: The Vanishing (Spoorloos). 

Adapted from Tim Krabbé’s 1984 novella The Golden Egg, the film tells the story of a young man’s obsessive search for his girlfriend, who vanishes without a trace during a seemingly carefree road trip.

Long before Midsommar used blinding sunlight to unsettle audiences, The Vanishing demonstrated that true horror thrives in the full light of day. Set against the bright warmth of a European summer, the film replaces shadows and jump scares with something far more terrifying—an inexorable descent into the mind of a coldly methodical abductor. As the years stretch on, the boyfriend’s tireless search attracts the attention of the man responsible, a mild-mannered professor whose carefully constructed facade masks a truly diabolical nature.

A slow-burning, unorthodox love story as much as a thriller, The Vanishing builds its dread with eerie precision, refusing to offer easy answers or conventional catharsis. Its chilling, meticulously crafted finale remains one of the most unforgettable conclusions in cinema—one that will leave you breathless long after the credits roll. Sluizer later remade the film in English in 1993, but nothing compares to the original’s unshakable sense of dread and existential horror.