Spoorloos (aka The Vanishing) (1988)

A Dutch couple (Gene Bervoets, Johanna ter Steege) on vacation in France stop at a gas station convenience market. The girl goes to get some cold drinks but she never returns, she's vanished. The film jumps three years later when Bervoets, although in another relationship, is still obsessed with finding out what happened to ter Steege. During all this, the sociopath (Bernard Pierre Donnadieu) who kidnapped the girl has been watching him. This disturbing, unsettling thriller while riveting is compromised by two things. First, Donnadieu who is supposed to be an innocuous family man on the surface looks so creepy that he may as well have "pervert" tattooed on his forehead. Second, Bervoets' actions in the film's final act when engaged with Donnadieu make no logical sense at all and we're left with "What the hell was he thinking?". Still, there's no denying that this twisted, fascinating film is a dark classic of its kind even if by the film's end, you wonder what the point of it all is. Based on the novel THE GOLDEN EGG by Tim Krabbe who co-wrote the screenplay with the director, George Sluizer. Sluizer made the mistake of directing an English language version in 1993 that was compromised by a ridiculous, phony ending.