Lady in White begins with a successful horror author returning to his hometown of Willowpoint Falls. Stopping at a cemetery to visit a pair of gravestones, he begins to tell his driver their story. On Halloween 1962, 9-year-old Franklin “Frankie” Scarlatti (Lukas Haas) tells a scary story to his classmates. Afterwards, two of school jokesters Donald (Jared Rushton) and Louie (Gregory Levinson) take Frankie’s hat and toss it on a shelf in the cloak room. They let Frankie know where it is and then lock him in in the cloak room as he tries to get it back.
At nightfall, Frankie is still locked in the cloak room and sees the ghost of a little girl re-enact her death. Afterwards, a darkened figure enters the cloak room and begins to unscrew the metal vent unaware that Frankie is still hiding in the room. A rat startles Frankie which alerts the stranger to his presence. The stranger attacks Frankie and he loses consciousness taking him into a dreamlike state where he speaks to the ghost girl. Frankie is revived by his father giving him CPR and rushed to the hospital. Police find and arrest the black school janitor Harold Williams who was found drunk in the basement.
Frankie is soon released from the hospital and enjoys a comfortable recovery with his family. His brother Geno, brings a newspaper home which proclaims Frankie to be a star. Geno is reprimanded for making an inappropriate remark and the newspaper is thrown away. Secretly, Frankie finds the newspaper and reads the story regarding his attack which coincidentally links him to an on-going 10 year investigation into the deaths of 11 other children at the hands of a serial killer. Within the same article, he learns the name of the ghost – Melissa Ann Montgomery (Joelle Jacobi). Soon, Frankie sees the ghost of Melissa frequently and he befriends her. Her only request is that he help her find her mother.
When he returns to school, Frankie finishes removing the grate cover on the airvent in the cloakroom and removes an odd assortment of children’s objects. He singles out two things, a hairclip – which he assumes to belongs to Melissa as he saw something hard and shiny fly off her hair and drop into the grate during her struggle – and an old high school class ring. Frankie cannot figure out the significance of anything he found in the grate. A few more weeks pass and the seasons change.
One day, Frankie overhears a conversation between his father and the chief of police. The chief readily admits that Mr. Williams is probably a scapegoat for the murders. The chief also explains that blood found within the cloakroom links that location to the murder of Melissa Montgomery – a fact not released to the press. In a flash, Frankie figures out that the killer came back for his class ring which he dropped into the airvent the night he killed Melissa.
Unbeknownst to Frankie, the ring has fallen out of his pocket in his bedroom several days earlier (and picked up by Geno). Frankie relays his theories to family friend Phil. Several days later, Frankie is lured out to the cliffs by Donald and Louie and encounters a lady in white clothing inside an old abandoned cottage.
All three kids run out of the house scared but Frankie realizes that she may be Melissa’s mother and tries to explain the situation to Geno (who has come looking for him due to the late hour). Geno does not believe him but now understands the origin of the ring he found. Although he does not tell Frankie that he found the ring.
Lady in White is a 1988 American mystery horror film directed, produced, written and scored by Frank LaLoggia, and starring Lukas Haas, Len Cariou, Alex Rocco and Katherine Helmond. The plot follows a schoolboy in 1962 upstate New York who becomes embroiled in the mystery surrounding a series of child murders after he witnesses the ghost of a young girl who was murdered in his school’s coat closet.
Much of filming took place in Phelps, New York, which took advantage of the appropriate local lore and scenery. The story is based on a version of The Lady in White legend, concerning a woman who supposedly searches for her daughter in Durand-Eastman Park in Rochester, New York, where the director hails from. Despite mostly positive reviews from critics, the film was a box office bomb. It later earned status as a cult film.
Directed by: Frank LaLoggia
Starring: Lukas Haas, Len Cariou, Alex Rocco, Katherine Helmond, Jason Presson, Renata Vanni, Angelo Bertolini, Joelle Jacobi, Jared Rushton, Gregory Levinson, Lucy Lee Flippin, Rita Zohar
Screenplay by: Frank LaLoggia
Production Design by: Richard K. Hummel
Cinematography by: Russell Carpenter
Film Editing by: Steve Mann
Costume Design by: Jacqueline Saint Anne
Set Decoration by: Sarah Burdick Stone
Art Direction by: Howard Kling, Kenneth Wolf Jr.
Music by: Frank LaLoggia
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for adult situations, language and violence.
Distributed by: New Century Vista Film Company
Release Date: April 22, 1988
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