Tim Krabbé, who wrote both the novel and the screenplay that was adapted from it, based the story on a newspaper article that he accidentally read about a female tourist who disappeared from a bus trip after buying chewing gum at a gas station in France. The police had searched for two nights without finding a trace of the girl. Ten years later, Krabbé did extensive research and found that the girl had turned up alive and well one day later; she had simply boarded the wrong bus. Krabbé even called her to thank her for providing him with the inspiration for the story.
The film was submitted to the Academy Awards in 1988 as the official Dutch entry for Best Foreign Language Film. However, the AMPAS disqualified it because they determined that there was too much French dialog in the film to warrant it being a Dutch candidate.
The production ran short on money for feeding the cast and crew during filming. According to George Sluizer, he went to some local French underworld figures who lent him money, but also threatened him, in case he wouldn't pay back. The cast seriously doubt this story.
According to director George Sluizer, director Stanley Kubrick called him after seeing The Vanishing (1988) to tell him it was the most terrifying film he had ever seen. He had seen it ten times then, and was impressed by the film's structure and ending, as well as the performance of actress Johanna ter Steege. So impressed, that he was said to have offered her a role in his (uncompleted) film Aryan Papers. Sluizer was skeptical of Kubrick finding this film so scary, so he asked him, "Well, you directed the The Shining (1980), haven't you seen that?" To which Kubrick immediately replied, "Yeah, but that was child's play compared to this!"
Tim Krabbe wrote the book that inspired this film, "The Golden Egg." He also wrote the screenplay for "The Vanishing." For many years he was a competitive bicycle racer - hence the presence of two bicycles in this film. He authored what many consider to be the definitive book about bicycle racing, "The Ride." In Holland, his home country, he is a chess player and still active in the cycling community.