The Other Side of the Tracks (2008)

 

Spoiler alert!
Just watched this movie an hour back and I have to say that it is seriously underrated. It's not just a tragic love story; there's a lot more to it than meets the eye. The summary beside the trailer says : A depressed young man struggles to move on and escape haunting memories of his girlfriend, killed ten years ago in a train accident.
I figured out after watching it that the ghost of the man hangs in the fine line between life and death. In other words, he's in a coma. While in this comatose stage, he's visited by his best friend and highschool sweetheart, both of whom are also ghosts. His best friend encourages him to move on in life while his girlfriend pleads for him to join her in the afterlife. Not much happens throughout the film but things get pretty exciting towards the end.
We find out that that he's been lying in a hospital bed for a decade after surviving a car-train collision which killed both his friends. He never wakes up because he dies before he can. His late mother had plans for him but one major accident can not only destroy lives but can also wipe out all hopes for the future.
It makes you ponder over how futile life really is. Even the fact that Brendan Fehr's in it doesnt make the movie less depressing.

Top 5 Convincing Psychopaths in Films

1. Hannibal Lecter (The Silence of the Lambs)

The Movie
An ambitious FBI agent enlists the aid of a criminally insane ex-psychiatrist to help track down a vicious serial killer.
About him
A brilliant, genius psychologist and a vicious murderer at the same time.

2. Jack Torrance (The Shining)

The Movie
A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where an evil and spiritual presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from the past and of the future.
About him
Jack is an extremely sympathetic character. His power as a protagonist lies in his deep desire, and great potential, to be a good person – a good father, a good husband, and a good writer. Yet, he's a tragic figure with very specific demons, namely his temper and the memory of his abusive father.

3. Michael Myers (Halloween)

The Movie
A psychotic murderer institutionalized since childhood escapes on a mindless rampage while his doctor chases him through the streets.
About him
A common characterization is that Michael Myers is evil. John Carpenter has described the character as "almost a supernatural force - a force of nature. An evil force that's loose," a force that is "unkillable".Professor Nicholas Rogers elaborates, "Myers is depicted as a mythic, elusive bogeyman, one of superhuman strength who cannot be killed by bullets, stab wounds, or fire."

4. Norman Bates (Psycho)

The Movie
A young woman steals $40,000 from her employer's client, and subsequently encounters a young motel proprietor too long under the domination of his mother.
About him
His character, suffering from severe mental illness as a result of years of abuse from his mother, appears normal to everyone else, as he presents himself as a humble business owner and son. His multiple personalities and deranged relationship with his mother lead him to kill anyone who threatens his mother’s wishes.

5. The Joker (Batman: The Dark Knight)

The Movie
Batman, Gordon and Harvey Dent are forced to deal with the chaos unleashed by an anarchist mastermind known only as the Joker, as he drives each of them to their limits.
About him
Its the insatiable lust for chaos and destruction that makes The Joker so scary. He is flesh and blood, he is not immortal, but it is his disregard and denial of such petty constraints that truly make him terrifying. In one pivotal scene, The Joker quietly but vehemently urges Batman to run him down with the Batpod, a collision that would surely kill The Joker. It is not his own survival that The Joker considers, but the assertion of chaos. To get Batman to break his one rule – to never resort to killing – would be The Joker’s ultimate victory.

5 Vampire Films Way Better Than Twilight

1. The Lost Boys

Recently divorced Lucy packs up her belongings and, along with teenaged sons Michael and Sam, moves in with her eccentric father, who lives in the Northern California town of Santa Cruz. Rumored to be the "Murder Capital of the World," the town is dominated by an old amusement park. Michael, the older of the boys, becomes infatuated with a beautiful girl who introduces him to a strange gang of teen bikers led by David. As it turns out, the teens are vampires and Michael becomes one of them.

2. Salem's Lot (1979)

Salem’s Lot is loosely based on the great Stephen King novel of the same title. Salem’s Lot is a town which a new member, Mr. Straker, has taken as his new “home”, and has a mysterious partner, namely Mr. Barlow. Not too long after Straker arrives in Salem’s Lot, people start disappearing from sight and dying from odd causes. No one is sure why, including Ben Mears who is in town to write a new book on the town’s rumored haunted house, which hides a terrible secret.

3. Let The Right One In

Oskar, a bullied 12-year old, dreams of revenge. He falls in love with Eli, a peculiar girl. She can't stand the sun or food and to come into a room she needs to be invited. Eli gives Oskar the strength to hit back but when he realizes that Eli needs to drink other peoples blood to live he's faced with a choice. How much can love forgive?

4. Near Dark
 

Caleb, a restless young man from a small farm town, meets an alluring drifter named Mae. She reveals herself to be a vampire, who "turns" Caleb into one of her kind rather than kill him. But the rest of her "family" is slow to accept the newcomer. The ancient leader, Jesse, and his psychotic henchman Severen lay down the law; Caleb has to carry his own weight or die. However, he can't bring himself to kill. He manages to win the gang's approval when he rescues them from certain death in a daytime gunfight during a spectacular motel shoot-out in which every bullet hole lets in a deadly ray of sunlight. When the vampires threaten Caleb's real family, he's forced to choose between life and death.

5. Jennifer's Body

A horror film with a wicked sense of humor, Jennifer's Body is about small town high school student Jennifer, who is possessed by a hungry demon. She transitions from being "high school evil" - gorgeous, stuck up and ultra-attitudinal - to the real deal: evil/evil. The glittering beauty becomes a pale and sickly creature jonesing for a meaty snack, and guys who never stood a chance with her, take on new luster in the light of Jennifer's insatiable appetite. Meanwhile, Jennifer's lifelong best friend Needy, long relegated to living in Jennifer's shadow, must step-up to protect the town's young men.

Picnic At Hanging Rock (1975)

 A haunting movie based on a novel by Joan Lindsay. The story is as follows...

The students from Mrs. Appleyard's School for Girls - a kind of boarding finishing school where decorum and etiquette are the most important subjects - are going on an outing to Hanging Rock, a local geographical landmark. Only one of them, Sara, is being left behind. The reasons for her exclusion are unclear, but it could have something to do with her unhealthy attachment to Miranda. At Hanging Rock, as everyone including the chaperones, Miss McCraw and Mlle. de Poitiers lounges in the afternoon sun, four girls go on an expedition of the rock formation. Three of them do not return and the fourth, when she gets back, is in a state of hysteria. Also missing is Miss McCraw. The police are called in, but their search turns up nothing: no bodies and no signs of foul play. When one of the girls, Irma, is discovered unconscious but largely unharmed a week later, she is unable to provide any clue about the whereabouts of the others - her memory is a blank.

    

5 Christopher Pike Books I'll Never Grow Tired of Reading

1. BURY ME DEEP 



Jean is on her way to Hawaii for a week of fun in the sun. But the vacation gets off to a gruesome start. The boy sitting beside her on the plane suddenly chokes and dies. Jean tries to push the incident out of her mind when she arrives on the island, but that's impossible. Part of the reason is because Mike keeps coming back to her in her dreams. Horrible dreams filled with cold blood.

Two of Jean's friends are waiting for her in Hawaii -- Mandy and Michele. They have already made friends with two young men who teach scuba diving at the hotel -- Dave and Johnny. Jean and Johnny quickly become friends. But there are problems in paradise. Dave and Johnny have recently lost a partner in the ocean. No one knows how he died. No one can find his body. But then Jean finds Mike's body. It isn't where it's supposed to be, and it seems as if it's still got some life in it.

Horror rating: 4/5

2. REMEMBER ME

 

When Shari Cooper awoke at home after being at her girlfriend's birthday party, her family acted like she wasn't there. They didn't hear a thing she said. They wouldn't even look at her. Then the call came from the hospital. Her father and brother paled. Her mother started to cry. Shari didn't know what was wrong. Not until she followed them to the hospital. There she found herself lying on a cold slab in the morgue. The police said that it was suicide. Shari knew she had been murdered. Making a vow to herself to find her killer, Shari embarks on the strangest of all criminal investigations: one in which she spies on her friends, and even enters their dreams -- where she comes face-to-face with a nightmare from beyond the grave. The Shadow -- a thing more horrible than death itself -- is the key to Shari's death, and the only thing that can stop her murderer from murdering again.

Horror rating: 4.5/5

3.THE MIDNIGHT CLUB

Rotterdam Home, a hospice where teenagers with terminal illnesses went to die, was home to the Midnight Club--a group of five young men and women who met at midnight and told stories of intrigue and horror. One night they made a pact that the first of them to die would make every effort to contact the others . . . from beyond the grave!

A sad story which may not appeal to most horror freaks but It was totally worth my time.

Horror rating: 4.5/

4. THE LOST MIND

She didn't know what she had done.

She awoke in the woods beside a dead body. There was a knife in her hand, blood on her

clothes. Had she killed the young woman who lay beside her? She couldn't remember.

She couldn't remember anything.

Not even her own name.

It was as if someone had stolen her mind.

Stolen her soul.

Horror rating: 5/5

5. ROAD TO NOWHERE

Teresa Chafey is running away from home. Driving north along the California coast, she picks up two mysterious hitchhikers: Poppy Corn and Freedom Jack. Together the three of them tell stories: Teresa of her devastating relationship with her boyfriend, Poppy of a sad young woman she once knew, and Freedom of a talented young man with a violent temper. Yet as they talk, a darker story unfolds around them. A story of life and death, of redemption and damnation. It will be the longest night of Teresa's life.

Maybe the last night of her life.

Horror rating: 5/5

5 Places I'd Never Spend the Night In

1. Isla de las Munecas

 There's something about dolls that scares the hell out of me. I'm not sure of whether its got something to do with Chucky or the fact that something plastic resembling us, human beings, seems kind of abnormal. I have a similar fear of Clowns.
Anyway, so this is the Island near Mexico City filled with odd looking dolls apparently collected by some old hermit who was said to be nuts. The Island is  haunted by the spirit of a young girl who drowned nearby.



2. Bhangarh Ruins

This was once a beautiful kingdom located in the state of Rajasthan in India. The myth regarding the place is that there lived a charming princess by the name of Ratnavati who was the most sought after because of her tremendous beauty. A tantrik by the name of Singhia fell desperately in love with her but wasn't allowed to even speak to her because of his dark practices. He tried to seduce her with magical scented oil but she saw through this plan and threw the bottle on a wall which crushed the tantrik. His dying wish was that the whole place be cursed and that not a single being left alive. The following day, a huge battle took place killing everyone including the princess. Till this day it's been impossible to build anything there but for temples. The Indian government has taken strict measures prohibiting anyone from entering it in the night. There has got to be some truth in the story for the goverment to have taken things to such an extreme or maybe I'm just plain gullible.


3. Aokigahara Forest

Also known as 'Suicide Forest' this place is located in Japan, at the north west base of Mount Fuji.
The queer thing about this forest is that it has a history of suicides commited by people for no apparent reason. It's associated with demons in japanese mythology.
The high rate of suicide has even led officials to place signs in the forest, urging those who have gone there in order to commit suicide to seek help and not kill themselves. Hmm... seems like the grim reaper  decided to make it his permanent base.

4.Essex Mountain Sanatorium

This facility was established with the aim of curing people of tuberculosis in New Jersey in 1907. There were increasing complaints of  patient mistreatment scandals, funding problems and horrible experiments resulting in its closure. The abandoned place soon became a popular hideout for escaped lunatics and weird rituals.

A run down building seemingly haunted by the spirits of  people with a

history of mental disorders and full of satanic graffitti drawn by vandals. What could possibly be worse?

5. The Tower of London

This structure constructed by William the Conqueror in 1078, has the reputation for being  the most haunted building in the whole of England.
Its a popular haunt for the White Lady who has been sighted a number of times by random passers by.
Its infamous for the death of Henry VI who was murdered by the Duke of Gloucestor. Lady Jane Grey, Anne Boleyn as well as Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, were also executed in a gruesome manner in the same place. The whimpering of children can be heard and the strong presence of unearthly souls is very evident.