Lady In White is one in a handful of films I like to think of as the “child oriented yet still pretty terrifying live action horror” sub-genre, it sits alongside a few ones that Disney did like Watcher In The Woods, Something Wicked This Way Comes and the British produced Afraid Of The Dark. They’re geared towards younger audiences in a sense, but they still have dark, macabre, uncompromising themes and seriously spooky aspects. It’s taken me a long time to find this one but it was worth that wait as it’s pretty much the best of the bunch, a sensational ghost story/mystery/serial killer procedural with wonderful performances all across the board, some gorgeous upstate New York autumnal vibes and warmhearted Italian American family dynamics sold splendidly by all among the cast. As a grownup writer from the city (Frank LaLoggia, also the immensely talented writer/director) revisits his childhood home in the country, he recounts, in blessedly hushed campfire tones, a few years in his life as a boy (played by Lukas Haas) where he encountered several ghosts in a hair raising series of events. As an elusive child murderer plagued their township and the surrounding area eluding police for years, the boy is visited by the wandering spirit of one of his victims (Joelle Jacobi, unsettling and sympathetic in the same beat) who can’t find her way to the other side until her killer is caught. So begins a rousing tale of fright and menace as the murderer, lurking in plain sight, is slowly sought by the living and the dead alike in spectral collaboration. A lot of time is spent with the boy and his family, and one gets the sense of a realistic, loving, hectic atmosphere of growing up in that era. Alex Rocco from The Godfather is sensational as the boy’s father, who has a tough guy exterior but a very vulnerable heart underneath. The film exudes genuine warmth and affection between the human beings who are alive, truly authentic sadness and melancholic longing for those that are not and offers some of the most severely frightening ghost encounters I’ve seen in film, particularly a sequence where the boy observes a flashback in real time of the exact moment the girl was murdered that is soul shaking in its blunt, disturbing honesty and raw performance from the young actress. Lots of time passes in the story so not only do we get to see a chilly, bucolic Halloween pass by in this lovely little county, we also see Christmas come for some bonus holiday vibes. It’s a brilliant film, full of grand set pieces, down to earth characters, a sense of dark realism that doesn’t sugarcoat the more unpleasant realities in life, an absolutely horrifying villain, effective special effects for the ghosts, tons of shadowy, elemental, earthen atmosphere and a showstopper of a climax set atop windy bluffs overlooking stark, deadly cliffs high above the ocean below. About as close as you can come to a perfect spooky season film.
-Nate Hill
Podcasting Them Softly 