After his wife Saskia (ter Steege) goes missing at a roadside concession stand in France, Amsterdam native Rex Hofman (Bervoets) begins a frantic, fruitless search. Three years later, still obsessed with Saskia's fate and unable to move on with his life, Rex continues posting handbills and making appeals on TV, hoping someone comes forward with information. Intrigued by Rex's "need to know," meticulous kidnapper Raymond Lemorne (Donnadieu) has been watching all along, and is preparing to make contact.

A psychological thriller that burrows right under your skin, Sluizer's brilliant study of a random abduction and the impetus behind it provides the best kind of chills, the subtle ones that come from inference and mood. What sets the film apart is the early introduction of Donnadieu, playing a devoted family man with a cold, calculating sociopathic streak. Masterfully building a feeling of dread throughout, "The Vanishing" is a smart, creepy exercise in all-too-credible terror.