“The Haunting of Amelia” (The Other Side of the Tracks) is a movie that tricks the mind into believing one thing and then offers a unique twist at the end. The film is billed as a supernatural thriller but easily could be described as a psychological melodrama.

The indie film is the debut for short film director A.D. Calvo. It stars Brendan Fehr (Roswell, CSI: Miami) as, Josh, a disturbed man who cannot move on from a train accident that killed his girlfriend 10 years earlier. He is constantly haunted by visions of his dead girlfriend and memories of the accident that keep him from living a normal life. Josh lives a mundane life working at a pizza place with no business and returning home every night to an empty, unkempt house.

He seems to be giving up on life until his high school friend Rusty, played by Chad Lindberg (The Fast and the Furious), returns to town for their 10 year high school reunion and attempts to revive Josh by remembering the good times and forgetting about his painful past. Along the way a new and mysterious waitress begins working at the pizza place giving meaning to Josh’s life and forcing Rusty out in the process.

The title of the movie suggests that it is going to be a movie about ghosts terrorizing people. If this is the kind of movie you are expecting than you will be disappointed. The only haunting that occurs is the crazy visions Josh has of his deceased girlfriend. The haunting described in the title is all mental. Having said that, it is still a movie with an intriguing plot that will keep the viewer guessing what is real and what is fantasy.

Despite the films relatively low budget (estimated at $3,000,000 by imdb.com) the makeup on the actress playing the dead girlfriend is superb. It is eerie, basically what a person hit by a train would look like and the thought of seeing her in my nightmares chills me to the core.

The film was released to DVD and Video on Demand on December 28th. It is an interesting plot, but is slow and boring in spots. Overall it is worth a rent. If you are looking for a scary, haunting movie that will make you jump or scare the “bejesus” out of you skip it.

Story by Derick Bischoff