I watched the Bridges/Sutherland remake years ago and really enjoyed it, but apparently the original is much better! We’re in mid-80s France. A young Dutch couple, Saskia (Johanna ter Steele) and Rex (Gene Bervoets) are bickering on a road trip, in a car that runs out of gas off the beaten track. Rex walks off to fetch gas, when he returns, Saskia is gone!… He finds her, but this is foreshadowing what’s to come. This intro would be scary enough, but perhaps too predictable too tropey, but when Saskia goes missing in broad daylight at a busy service stop up the road, it’s pretty chilling. There’s no panic at first. Rex doesn’t know what we know. We’ve seen Raymond (Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu) lurking with his chloroform. Rex is soon running around the services, shouting her name. Searching high and low… but she’s gone. Seemingly into fresh air. Just as Raymond has meticulously planned. He’s a family man, with an answer for every one of his unusual behaviours. Three years on, Rex is still wondering what happened. It’s not helped by the mysterious postcards he receives, stringing him along, stopping him from moving on. Stopping from committing to Lieneke (Gwen Eckhaus). It’s the perfect three act structure. Saskia’s vanishing. Rex’s tormenting and then, Raymond’s party game revelations. Squaring up to Rex in the street, he offers a “unique chance” to find out what happened and Rex is too invested to say no. The structure may sound simple, but the way this slowly tells us more and more about Raymond is deftly done and as we learn, slowly Rex does too. Raymond is cold, calculating, but oddly personable. Nothing like the Bridges portrayal. You don’t side with him, or even understand him, but he’s a much more accessible character than his actions would have you believe. The remake felt grittier, grimier, but this feels better balanced. Its daily mundanity makes it all the more harrowing. It’s so normal, so believable and absolutely terrifying.
8/10

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