Lady In White (DVD)

The 20th Anniversary disc of Lady In White comes out 17 years after the film’s 1988 release date. But who’s counting? (Actually, the DVD box doesn’t say anything that I could see about the anniversary — it’s the writer/director, Frank LaLoggia, who says that in his introduction.)

Lady in White is told in flashback by a contemporary horror-fiction writer thinking back on a miraculous, life-shaping event his childhood. This format is maintained for the first half of the film with a voiceover narration provided by LaLoggia, but it is pretty much abandoned after that. The writer as a child, Frankie, is played with wide-eyed appeal by Lukas Haas in one of his first starring roles. Featured in virtually every scene, he had to carry Lady in White and despite some occasional overacting he’s quite watchable.

The story’s main attraction is the mystery that young Frankie must help solve when one Halloween night, he witnesses the ghostly echoes of a murder that took place years before on that spookiest of holidays. Shaking in his Frankenstein mask, the little boy watches in horror as a young girl is murdered before his very eyes… but ghosts can’t actually hurt you, can they? When Frankie is accosted by a man who may or may not be the killer — and who may or may not be dead himself — he’s not so sure. Now a beacon to the netherworld, Frankie is later haunted by the infamous Lady in White (Katherine Helmond).

That’s all well and good, but if you are looking for a true ghost movie you might be a tad let down. Lady in White is really a coming of age drama with a very strong family/nostalgia backdrop that just happens to have supernatural trimmings.

What doesn’t work: The Italian family is somewhat stereotypical. It’s a bit too heavy on cloying sentimentality. The “mystery” is all too easy to figure out. The special effects are beyond obvious. There are many long, dull stretches between the times when something is actually happening. As a genre film, Lady in White falls short.

What works: There are some good sequences of ghostly suspense. It’s a sincerely early 60s period-looking film. Lukas Haas is charming. The peripheral actors are above-average. Lady in White may not be a rip-roaring thriller but it’s a terrific movie to show to young kids, particularly as a Halloween treat.

The DVD has the aforementioned introduction from LaLoggia, and for once, this usually extraneous “bonus” is actually appropriate. There is also commentary from LaLoggia that’s informative and anecdotally interesting (it’s also easier to understand why he’s so in love with the material and hence wasn’t as brutal as he should have been on the editing), and a behind-the-scenes featurette which is taken from original 1988 home-video material. The only obvious omission is any participation from the film’s star; it would have been nice to hear some of Haas’s recollections on the making of Lady in White and to know how he feels about it now.

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Reviewed by Staci Layne Wilson