Stanley Kubrick, who turned hallway twins into nightmares, admitted another film frightened him far more. Which title made the man behind The Shining call his own work child's play, and why is it quietly haunting a streaming queue today?
Stanley Kubrick built his legend on meticulously engineered dread, yet one film he didn’t make left him more rattled than his own classic. He championed George Sluizer’s Desaparecida, the 1988 Dutch-French thriller he reportedly watched ten times. Kubrick even told Sluizer it chilled him more than The Shining, the adaptation Stephen King famously disliked. With the original now streaming on Filmin, the comparison invites a fresh look at what makes terror linger long after the credits.
Stanley Kubrick and the haunting legacy of “The Shining”
Stanley Kubrick’s name is inseparable from cinematic rigor, and his 1980 film The Shining remains a benchmark of psychological horror, celebrated for its unnerving images and Jack Nicholson’s indelible performance. Yet even as audiences and critics praised it, Stephen King, author of the source novel, openly disapproved of Kubrick’s take. That tension makes the film a singular entry in his career. More intriguingly, Kubrick himself pointed to a work he found even more chilling than his own landmark: George Sluizer’s “The Vanishing”.
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What drew Kubrick to “Missing”?
Known for methodical craft, Kubrick was reportedly transfixed by Sluizer’s 1988 thriller, watching it at least ten times for its coiled suspense and devastating ending. He felt it outclassed “The Shining” in sheer terror, going so far as to call his own film “child’s play” by comparison. According to Sluizer, Kubrick initiated detailed discussions about structure and tone, a testament to how deeply the film lodged in his mind.
The quiet terror of “Missing”
Directed by Dutch filmmaker George Sluizer, the story follows Rex and Saskia, a couple whose holiday is shattered when she vanishes without a trace. Rex’s years-long obsession to find answers leads him to the perpetrator, a man driven by chillingly methodical impulses. In the end, Rex agrees to experience the same ordeal Saskia suffered to learn the truth. The film’s horror resides not in gore or the supernatural but in its exacting pace and psychological grip, a slow suffocation that Kubrick recognized as a masterclass in dread.
Two films, two kinds of fear
Where “The Shining” amplifies supernatural unease and a man’s descent into madness, “Desaparecida” is rooted in the plausible horrors of obsession and sociopathy. Kubrick understood that the fears they evoke are fundamentally different. His own film unsettles with grand, disorienting design; Sluizer’s chills through disciplined restraint, confronting the deeply human terror of loss and calculated malice.
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A tale of two versions
Following the 1988 success, Hollywood produced a 1993 remake of “The Vanishing,” starring Kiefer Sutherland and Sandra Bullock. Alterations to the narrative, including a softened ending, dulled its impact, and the result disappointed critics and audiences. For newcomers, even Kubrick’s admiration nudges discovery toward the 1988 original, available on streaming platforms such as Filmin.
George Sluizer later said he was humbled by Kubrick’s precise feedback and admiration. The dialogue between “The Shining” and “Missing” illuminates how cinema can approach fear from different angles, using suspense and the human psyche to linger in the mind long after the credits fade.
