Lady In White (1988)
Later, Donald and Louie lure Frankie out to the nearby cliffs, where they encounter a ghostly lady dressed in white. All three boys take off running and Frankie collides into Geno in the surrounding woods. Frankie tries to explain the link between Melissa, the attacker and the lady in white, but is unsuccessful. One evening, Melissa appears to both Geno and Frankie. The town clock begins to chime and Frankie realizes that her nightly death re-enactment is about to commence. They follow her ghost to the school then wait until her lifeless body reappears, which is carried by an invisible figure from the school and onto the cliffs. At the last minute, Melissa awakes and begins screaming as she is thrown over the cliffs. A pale, blond woman dressed in white then comes out of the cottage. Upon seeing Melissa's lifeless body on the rocks below, she flings herself off the cliff and also plunges to her death. The ghostly scene ends and the brothers head home. Finally, Frankie understands the source of Melissa's anguish. He vows to help her bring her killer to justice.
Lady in White (1988)
Regaining consciousness, Frankie finds himself in Melissa's old cottage with Amanda Harper, and learns that she was the one who saved him from Phil, and that she was the lady in white Frankie saw earlier when he was with Donald and Louie. Amanda reveals that she is Melissa's aunt and has been living in the cottage since the deaths of her sister and niece. Without warning, Phil attacks and kills Amanda, setting the building ablaze in the process. Pulling Frankie from the burning cottage, Phil attempts to throw him over the cliff. However, Frankie drops safely to the ground when the ghostly lady in white suddenly appears and frightens Phil, causing him to tumble over the cliff's edge. Melissa emerges from the burning cottage and the two ghosts happily reunite, ascending into the sky in a cascade of light. As Frankie crawls away from the ledge, Phil grabs his ankle. Angelo, Geno, and the police arrive and save Frankie. Angelo also tries to save Phil, but overcome with shame, Phil lets go and falls to his death. Everyone watches the cottage burn to the ground as the snow begins to fall.
A children's ghost story with much more serious tone and atmosphere than that implies, this story tries very hard to tackle some serious themes (racism) but doesn't have the capacity to do it right. The blunt racism expressed here isn't unrealistic, exactly, but it ignores outright the more subtle forms and the institutionalized forms--there's no way a verdict of not guilty would come down in this context. But all of that is then used as nothing more than a prop in a narrative about a white kid's inspiration for his future as a horror writer, so its realism isn't even the biggest problem. Still, if they had shaved off that problematic part of the narrative, you would have a decent creepy kids horror story.
This movie scared me when I was a youngster. A boy meets the ghost of a little girl and starts trying to solve her murder and discovers another mystery of the lady in white. It's not just scary it's kinda disturbing as well. The scene that terrified me the most is when the boy sees the way the little girl is murdered, it's a really haunting movie. I was going to post a spoiler tag and just talk about all the little events and scenes that got to me in more detail but I'm not going to. It's a great horror thriller that more people should check out.
If all Frank LaLoggia had made was the utterly bizarre Fear No Evil, he'd still be a filmmaker to celebrate. Luckily, he also gifted us with this film, a ghost story that bombed on initial release but has gone on to be a celebrated film, one that's just as much about growing up as it is about murder.Horror author Franklin "Frankie" Scarlatti (as an adult, he's played by the director, but in the film itself, it's Lukas Haas) is on his way back to Willowpoint Falls and relates the story of how way back in 1962, over Halloween, he was attacked and nearly strangled to death by a mysterious figure in black. Even more frightening, he witnesses the death of a young redhead girl, who has ties to the mysterious lady in white, an urban legend that all of the schoolboys live in fear of.The police arrest the school's black janitor, Harold "Willy" Williams, for the killings and the way the town reacts to this forms the moral backbone of the film. There's also a lot about family, with father Angelo (a welcome Alex Rocco), his adopted brother and the near comical shenanigans of Frankie's grandparents.Along the way, Frankie becomes obsessed with bringing closure to the redhead girl's ghost, solving her murder and bringing her back to her mother. There's also the matter of the real or unreal lady in white (Katherine Helmond from TV's Who's the Boss?).The film has a really great scene where the killer reveals himself within the foggy woods as the lighting in the scene progressively grows darker, a really interesting camera trick that is all but forgotten in our CGI era. In fact, all of the night scenes in the woods almost feel like an otherworldly affair, as if shot just outside our reality.LaLoggia wrote, directed, produced and scored this film, which was based on the legend of the Lady in White,a woman who roams Durand-Eastman Park in Rochester, New York searching for her daughter. It's a place hat the auteur knows well, as he grew up there and filmed much of the movie on location.It's a shame that LaLoggia didn't get to make more films, because of the two I've seen, he is able to tell a simple story that still feels intensely personal and nuanced. He's teased several projects over the years, including being attached to the Cannon Spider-Man movie that never got off the ground. Here's to another film coming from him, someday, someway.
Lady in White is directed by Frank LaLoggia, runs 113 minutes, is made by New Sky Productions, is released by New Century Vista Film Company (1988) (US) and Virgin Vision (1989) (UK), is written by Frank LaLoggia, is shot by Russell Carpenter, is produced by Frank LaLoggia and Andrew G La Marca, is scored by Frank LaLoggia and designed by Richard K Hummel.
Lady in White (1988) (movie): An author tells the story of how, as a young boy growing up in a 1960s small town, he was haunted after witnessing the murder of a little girl. Discover the latest Discussions, Reviews, Quotes, Theories, Explanations and Analysis of Lady in White (1988) below 041b061a72