790 The Vanishing (1993)

 This  remake of  the  fabulous Dutch film  Spoorloos  drew a  visceral revulsion from those crtics who pat themselves on the back for watching films with subtitles. They had a point though. Most  of the  original story remains ; a  girl goes missing from a bathroom break at a gas station, her  boyfriend becomes  self- destrutively obsessed with her disappearance until her abductor makes contact and offers to  explain but on his own terms. This originally led to an ultra bleak shock ending which Hollywood would not accept. This  necessitated a restructuring of the story so that a minor character in the original becomes the female lead,  the abducted girl is  relegated to the background and the film ends really lamely on a naff joke.

That said, if  you're unfamiliar with the original, this is a  watchable thriller. Jeff  Bridges got a lot of stick for  his  performance as the smiling psychopath but  he's not  atrocious and  Keifer  Sutherland  is good  as the tormented boyfriend. The main problems are his unconvincing relationship with the  new girl and  her abrupt transformation from soft-hearted waitress to quick thinking action heroine, both  of them stemming from the requirement to change the ending.

Nancy Travis ( as Rita )

Sex :  No

Death : Survives

Nancy was born in New York and  started out  as  a  stage actress in the  early eighties , moving through television to her first  film role in Three  Men And A Baby, a  stroke of luck that  would not be all that typical of her career. In  the  following  few  years she  was  very busy with roles in Air  America, Chaplin and  Internal Affairs  but  eventually  the  accumulation of bombs (such as this one ) on her c.v. took its  toll and  she  was more  often found on the small screen. In 1994 she  married a film  executive  but she is still active.

Sandra  Bullock  (as Diane ) 

Sex : No

Death : Offscreen but it's strongly intimated she  was  buried alive

A  genuine superstar , Sandra  was  born in Virginia. Her mother was German and she was partly raised there.  She  worked her way through odd jobs, student poroductions and theatre to a first film role in Hangmen in 1987. She  first attracted attention in Demolition Man in 1993  and became  a  star after Speed in 1994. Her  good  sense and nose for a good role  have  kept  her an A-lister and since 1998 she has also been a  successful film producer. She  finally snagged an Oscar for The Blind Side in 2009 and got another nomination for Gravity in  2013. She has  twice been Hollywood's best paid actress.

Park Overall ( as Lynn)

Sex : No

Death : Survives

Christened Parker, she presumably chose to sound more like an item in  the wardrobe  than an actress. She  made  her  film  debut  in Tainted in 1987 but became  famous on TV the  following  year with Empty Nest. Her  strong  accent  led to  typecasting in white trash supporting  roles  and  her  increasing environmental activism and pro-abortion statements  didn't help her career either. Her  last film was in 2011 and in her bid to become Democratic nominee for  Tennessee in 2012 she  came a distant third.

Maggie Linderman ( as Denise )

Sex : No

Death : Survives

With only  two other mid-nineties credits to her name, Maggie  has done an effective vanishing act of her own.