If you want movies about the Antichrist, the end of the world and all these things that seem to be so big in demand now or especially since the Sept 11, 2001 tragedy in America, you might just skip this one and go for other Cloud Ten-pictures instead. This film, sort of a forerunner to the many superior Cloud Ten movies to follow, was designed as a documentary within a film, which these people were dead serious about. This was designed as an actual tape for unsaved people to find after the rapture so they can figure out what the hell is going on. Keep in mind, while loads of horror fans see this scene as something totally makebelieve, like The Omen or Rosemary's Baby, the Christians are convinced the end days soon are upon us. I do not want to start a holy war with anyone on this page, but you need to keep this cocnept in mind when dealing with this particular film.

In short, the great rapture comes, where the Christians alive and dead are all taken into hevaen. Nonbelievers are left behind to either find Jesus or to fall into the temptations of the Antichrist. One nonbeliever struggles with himself and his surroundings, finds god and goes to the graveyard where he digs up his father's coffin. Since the father was a Christian, he finds nothing but an empty suit in the grave.This means his father has been resurrected and glory, glory, glory, all is right with the world. I make note of this scene for a specific reason, as you will see.

Had the movie been used as a mere movie, it could have flown better. Andre Van Heerden, then a very new director on the feature film scene, showed an amazing insight for camera and creative work, which would manifest in some of his other works down the road, indicating he was no flash in the pan.

The problem stems from making this a documentary or guidebook for those left after Jesus takes his people home.

John Hagee, a controversial Texas evangelist whom I personally find one of the most annoying people on the face of the earth, narrates this thing. Rather than making a movie and letting it stand on that merit, they have him continually popping up at key points in the film, explaining what is going on. It gets too repetitive, to the point where viewers like myself will find they are growing ticked. It's like, "Oh no, not him again, just let us watch the thing, okay."

Case in point. I was watching this with my brother-on-law, while Hagee continually popped up out of nowhere, telling us what we had just seen and why it was happening. It got to the point where we were making wisecracks at the screen, like a sitting of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

The best one came in the aforenoted coffin scene. One of us, I forget which, said, "Watch, Hagge's gonna be in the coffin waiting for the guy and pop up to tell him his dead father's in heaven."

We called that one wrong, for once.

Likewise it is odd that, for the one who turns the world into a bigger mess than George Bush could on his worst day, the Antichrist has very little play in this film. You see some of his works, but he, himself, has very little screen time, unlike the giggling, leering, scene-stealing version Van Heerden would later create with Nick Mancuso as Franco Macalousso in the movies that would follow.

Vanished could work as a film, but as a documentary within a movie frame, it is real hard for someone like me not to laugh at the thing. Other Cloud Ten pictures have worked well for me. This one really doesn't, but you can't win them all, as the saying goes.

Now, if I wake up to find the churches empty, the christians gone, including Hagee, whom I am not gonna miss too much, and see someone going around with a 666 hand stamper, then I just might throw this into the old vcr and take note. I, however, am not going to hold my breath waiting for that to happen.

review � by Dale Pierce

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In times of uncertainty of a possible zombie outbreak, a woman has to decide between two men - only one of them's one of the undead.

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special appearances by
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written by
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produced by
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