Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

It is not only a funny movie, but it allows a great amount of joy for anyone who watches it.

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

There is just so much movie here. For some it may be too much. But in the same secretly sarcastic way most telemarketers say the phrase, the title of this one is particularly apt.

This is one of my wife's favorite 80s horror memories, but somehow the movie had escaped my notice for decades. While rifling through bootleg selections at a recent horror con, my wife was elated to find a copy and share this treasure with me. My immediate reaction, though, is maybe you have to have been there.Lucas Haas was all over 80s movies and this was the film that introduced him. The tale of a young Italian boy, living with his father, brother and grandparents after the loss of his mother. The movie definitely plays out the theme of loss in many different ways. The boy is trapped in a coat room as a prank and comes to find horrors, both spectral and real. He sets in motion a chain of events that will bring to attention a dozen murdered children, a family of ghostly women and a murder surrounding a molester.The things that I am going to hold most against this movie are not fair to hold against it. I admit that readily, yet cannot pretend that they don't skew my view of the movie towards the negative, mostly the budget, which brings a harsh light on the quality of the effects available at this time in cinema. I am not against indie horror, in any way. I love it, in fact, but when going back 30 years to watch a low budget horror, it does make the budget all the more noticeable. The movie feels blatantly 80s. While that should never be held against a movie, the best films feel timeless. Yes, Universal's monsters have bad effects that are signatures of their time, but they transcend those limitations to create movies that don't feel so much like products of their time. This movie, though, has many trappings of the 80s. This plays out a LOT in the effects used for the ghosts. They have that cheap, see-though quality that probably looked hokey at the time and looks downright terrible now. At one point I swear you see wires. Lovers of the film will shout that I am being a modernist here, but it removes the viewer from the picture too much to see a blatant look behind the curtains of the effects.The budget limitations also reflect on a lot of the other aspects of "film making" here, such as the score and the camera-work. They feel empty and do nothing to help heighten the tension or mood of the picture. On the other hand, though, the acting is pretty good for a movie of this caliber. The child actors are never cloying. The grandparents are funny and the adults in the movie, though never given that much to do, play their roles well.Many movies have the same limitations, though, some that I love and adore. One thing that can help a movie rise above those limitations, though, is a quality script and I think that's what this movie is missing more than anything. I don't feel that the movie ever quite knew what it wanted to be. There are plenty of tame, family-friendly horror films that don't need blood and gore and focus on child characters and end up being greatly successful at creating a good film. This movie, though, seems like it wanted to hide from that moniker of the child movie, creating some moments that are far too dark for the average kid-friendly spook and never hints at the pure magic that helps kids and adults alike love a movie of that tone. The movie never truly succeeds as a ghost story, either. It spends too much of its' time on a half-baked racial injustice angle and the mystery of the molester to ever give its' frights enough buildup and mood to be effective. Though the kids frequently tell tales of the Lady in White, we only ever get one real scene of an actual terror involving the specter and its' played almost more for laughs than scares.If you want a good ghost story, I can names dozens that are better. If you want a family-friendly frightener, I can name you plenty that are better. This movie isn't terrible by any stretch, but it's painfully average and really not worth your time.

Come back with me to 1962. The setting? Willowpoint Falls, NY. Thus begins Frank LaLoggia's beautiful and atmospheric LADY IN WHITE, a ghost story that is so much more. The story begins with a famous author recanting the early days of his childhood in a small New York village. Frankie Scarlatti, played by Lukas Haas, two years after his impressive turn in Peter Weir's WITNESS, is coping with the death of his mother, being raised by his father Angelo (the late, great Alex Rocco) and his grandparents (they provide some wonderful comic relief). His older brother Geno (Jason Presson) is a pain, but they share a mutual affection. All in all, his childhood is mostly normal. But after fellow students lock him in the school cloakroom, he comes across the ghost of a little girl that will change his life forever.LaLoggia helmed 1981's FEAR NO EVIL, but that outing is far and away different that this story, which combines the innocence of childhood and the brutality of adulthood. Haas and Rocco are excellent, as are Len Cariou and Katherine Helmond in supporting roles. Classified as a horror movie by many critics, it takes on a traditional ghost story, and turns it into so much more. A subplot about a black janitor and a connection to the story makes you feel as if you were reading Harper Lee's novel in the way it was presented, but it does tie the story into its ultimate conclusion. Rarely has a movie captured childhood and it's turn into adulthood so beautifully. Scary and heartwarming, it's a movie that you won't soon forget.

A beautiful, almost Ray Bradbury quality infuses every frame of Frank LaLoggia's haunting Lady in White. Since I first saw this movie back in the late 80s, I was completely taken by it's originality, charm, lush cinematography (By Russell Carpenter, who would later go on to become one of Hollywood's greatest cinematographers.), and knock-out performances by Lukas Haas, Alex Rocco and Len Cariou. This movie really has everything going for it, but mostly it has heart. It's wonderful (and rare) to see a film that's made by people who not only have respect for the genre, but also want to elevate it. And that's exactly what LaLoggia does with this nostalgic tale.If you like your horror films to have a bit more originality and style than today's cookie- cutter Hollywood fare, then don't miss Lady in White.

The Lady In White is a good example of an excellent movie that many people haven't seen or even heard of. What makes this movie stand out among the sea of genre pics is the fact that it is different. Frank LaLoggia created a unique tone with this picture and rather than following genre conventions, he decided to take things in a different direction. The film is somewhat of a classic and now that it is being re- released under the Scream Factory banner, hopefully it will get the love that it deserves. A ghost story that utilizes atmosphere, a touching and at times complex story that is grounded in characters that we care about, and style in spades, makes the Lady In White a movie that you need to see this and every Halloween season.