Lady in White (1988) · 5:46am Jun 4th, 2021
Maybe it's just me but, at a certain point one must consider their lunch or dinner choices before heading into traffic. You see, traffic is a cruel mistress. It slows up, bogs down and in pretty much any other way it can will make your life difficult. Add into it a sizeable Mexican meal and it becomes the slowest most arduous race against the devil to get home and not ruin your pants.
If home is too far away you might get lucky and find a gas station or something along the way. Admittedly it's one of those places you hold your breath. close your eyes and basically hope that nothing crawls out of the toilet and gets you in the end. However, once whatever it was that you've had passes there is a sense of relief that is almost zen like. Until the sequel but I digress.
I have no transition here so ... how about those 1980's movies starring kids?
It's kind of interesting to watch movies from that time period. There's a structural sort similarity to a lot of the shenanigans that happens in them. Like, you get the slightly odd but otherwise normal kid who typically has friends or a close sibling, the kid or kids have their adventure and then when the movie ends you're kind of like, "That's it?"
The 1988 movie Lady in White is kind of that way. Loosely based upon an urban legend in Rochester, New York, Lady in White is mostly set in the northern New Jersey town of Willow Falls in 1962 until early 63 (I say mostly because much like Stand By Me it starts with the adult version of the main character well after the events that took place). Frankie Scarletti (Lukas Haas) is the fairly normal kid with a passion for writing who lives with his father (Alex Rocco), brother (Jason Presson) and grand parents. Mom had died earlier.
After a Halloween party Frankie is locked in the cloak room of the local school by two of his, "friends" and is forced to stay the night. During the night Frankie has a dream that bothers him and wakes up to the ghost of a small girl (Joelle Jacobi) who acts out her murder in front of him and disappear. From here the mystery unfolds and Frankie is pushed to discover who killed the girl. The answer isn't lackluster effects oddly enough.
Lady in White attempts to blend multiple genres of film. Sometimes its a slice of life family movie, then it's a murder mystery and yes it even has some supernatural elements. If anything makes the movie work it's the performances of the various members of the Scarletti family. These people are spot on and their characters are interesting and funny. In all honesty if the movie were about them and as a family they were moving forward from the loss of the mother this could have been a really good bar none movie.
Where the movie lacks is with the ghost stuff and that entire plot thread. See, if you're a kid and you aren't used to the idea of another kid being murdered seeing the ghost girl thrash about and try to fight off an unseen attacker is really scary. I thought it was when I first saw it. Heck some of the shots that are used like, when the old woman is at the top of the stairs are pretty good and for younger viewers could catch them off guard.
It's a shame really because if somehow the movie were able to wind the family stuff and the ghost stuff a bit tighter and finish it up with a closing narration as to how it influenced the main character etc. it could have worked. As it stands it's a movie that is best noted for it's performances but as a creepy mystery it doesn't quite make it. Still if you wanna check it out I say go for it. Nothing ventured nothing gained.
the stats:
six dead bodies
two calendar breasts
death by sudden impact by a hard object
shooting
strangulation
the ol' beat and burn
log to the head
broken glass to the foot
cigarette fu
alligator fu
ghost antic fu
Shoutouts:
The entire Scarletti family Lukas Haas, Alex Rocco, Jason Presson, Angelo Bertolini and Renata Vanni.
Len Cariou as "uncle" Phil who really needs to keep track of his stuff.
Huh. Never heard of that one. Looks interesting.
It's one of those movies that popped up on tv periodically. Considering there's only a minor amount of blood and no real gore the only thing they really did was edit for language so it tended to pop up around eight or so at night. Some programming blocks also used to cut movies like this in half so that you'd come back and see the second part another night.