The Vanishing (1993)

[SlidePocket 707]

A bastardized remake of the 1988 foreign film Spoorloos, this version stars Jeff Bridges, Kiefer Sutherland, Nancy Travis and a pre-fame Sandra Bullock and was directed by the guy who also helmed the original.

 

Spoorloos featured the main villain defeating our hero by having him being buried alive and getting away from kidnapping and murdering the hero's missing girlfriend. But the actors in the remake felt that this ending would be too dark for mainstream audiences and suggested that he change the ending with the hero getting rescued by his new love interest and eventually kill the antagonist. Director George Sluizer was displeased about this and said that he would never work in a Hollywood production again. I'm curious if anybody is familiar with both versions, so I'll leave you to reply about it.

[sillstaw 414]

I've seen the original, and found it chilling, albeit perhaps overlong. I've refused to see the remake, mainly because Roger Ebert and various other critics pointed out how the ending is ruined. (Raising the question, "why remake something and then completely ruin the one thing that made it so effective?") I especially find it galling that the ending has the two survivors selling their story to a publishing company; can you imagine surviving that kind of ordeal and then demanding to be paid to tell about it?

 

Also, it seems like they got the casting of the male and female roles all backwards. I'm sure Jeff Bridges is an effective villain (up until they kill him), but wouldn't Kiefer Sutherland be better at playing an evil character? And the girlfriend who disappears is played by Sandra Bullock, while the new girlfriend is played by Nancy Travis, who seems like a lesser choice.

[Ofcoursemyhorse 1043]

I don't know. I certainly agree the french original had a much creepier ending. But I enjoy this movie, and like watching it with people who havent seen it before because they all lose their shit when Sandra Bullock disappears and then they find out her fate at the end of the movie.

 

Jeff Bridges is a legit fucking creep in this movie, and I actually like the fact that the movie didnt end with Nancy being the one buried with Kiefer rescuing her, I thought it was a pretty progressive move to have Nancy be the one who has to save Kiefer.

 

I do think that both Jeff Bridges and Kiefer Sutherland could have role swapped and each would have done an equally good job.

[RyanSz 3140]

I especially find it galling that the ending has the two survivors selling their story to a publishing company; can you imagine surviving that kind of ordeal and then demanding to be paid to tell about it?

That's become a common occurrence with people selling their stories of ordeals that they were in, whether they were true or not, so it's not too far fetched to see people wanting to sell their story. Chuck Palahnuik wrote a great book called Haunted which was based on the premise of people on a writing retreat realizing that they would not write a great work of literature so they instead sabotaged their living quarters and food in order to come off as survivors of a horrific accident in order to sell that story instead.

[Ofcoursemyhorse 1043]

Have to bump this movie just for the scene where Nancy Travis cosplays as Sandra Bullock.