If all Frank LaLoggia had made was the utterly bizarre Fear No Evil, he'd still be a filmmaker to celebrate. Luckily, he also gifted us with this film, a ghost story that bombed on initial release but has gone on to be a celebrated film, one that's just as much about growing up as it is about murder.

Horror author Franklin "Frankie" Scarlatti (as an adult, he's played by the director, but in the film itself, it's Lukas Haas) is on his way back to Willowpoint Falls and relates the story of how way back in 1962, over Halloween, he was attacked and nearly strangled to death by a mysterious figure in black. Even more frightening, he witnesses the death of a young redhead girl, who has ties to the mysterious lady in white, an urban legend that all of the schoolboys live in fear of.

The police arrest the school's black janitor, Harold "Willy" Williams, for the killings and the way the town reacts to this forms the moral backbone of the film. There's also a lot about family, with father Angelo (a welcome Alex Rocco),his adopted brother and the near comical shenanigans of Frankie's grandparents.

Along the way, Frankie becomes obsessed with bringing closure to the redhead girl's ghost, solving her murder and bringing her back to her mother. There's also the matter of the real or unreal lady in white (Katherine Helmond from TV's Who's the Boss?).

The film has a really great scene where the killer reveals himself within the foggy woods as the lighting in the scene progressively grows darker, a really interesting camera trick that is all but forgotten in our CGI era. In fact, all of the night scenes in the woods almost feel like an otherworldly affair, as if shot just outside our reality.

LaLoggia wrote, directed, produced and scored this film, which was based on the legend of the Lady in White,a woman who roams Durand-Eastman Park in Rochester, New York searching for her daughter. It's a place hat the auteur knows well, as he grew up there and filmed much of the movie on location.

It's a shame that LaLoggia didn't get to make more films, because of the two I've seen, he is able to tell a simple story that still feels intensely personal and nuanced. He's teased several projects over the years, including being attached to the Cannon Spider-Man movie that never got off the ground. Here's to another film coming from him, someday, someway.

Lady in White is directed, produced & written by Frank LaLoggia. It stars Lukas Haas, Len Cariou, Alex Rocco, and Katherine Helmond.

Lady In White arrived to no great fanfare in 1988, it got a limited release in theatres and promptly vanished from the public view. However, it did find a cult following thanks to the burgeoning success of the VHS home format. It seemed that, for home viewings at least, there was a market for a good old fashioned ghost story with a mystery killer kicker at its core. 1988 was the year that cash cow blood movies really started to bang the horror fans over the head. There were sequels for Elm Street, Critters, Friday the 13th, Fright Night, Hellraiser, Halloween, Poltergeist, Phantasm, Living Dead and Killer Tomatoes. But in amongst all that grue and lazy film making were two smart atmospheric movies splicing fantasy realms with their horror. One was the magnificent Paperhouse, the other was of course Lady In White.

It would be foolish of me to claim that Lady In White is flawless because that simply isn't the case, the rubbish score and its budgetary restrictions mean it simply hasn't aged as well as the afore mentioned Paperhouse. Suffice to say this isn't a film for everyone, and certainly not for those who drooled spittle over Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers or Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood. But LaLoggia's ambition and genuine affection for his story lifts this far above many of 1988's tepid releases.

Plot sees Lukas Haas play Frankie, a young boy who as part of a bully prank gets locked in the school cloak-room on Halloween night 1962. Whilst there he observes the ghostly apparition of a young girl, from where he then learns how she sadly became a ghost in the first place. First as he witnesses her murder, then as he is attacked by the unknown assailant who has returned to the cloak-room for some incriminating evidence he left behind. Surviving the attack (one of the film's itchy flaws since the killer must closely know him to let him live),Frankie embarks upon a mission to uncover the story behind the little girl's murder. It's a story that involves ghosts wandering around searching for closure, a serial child killer and the potentially wrongful incarceration of the school's black janitor. All of which is set in the delightfully named Willowpoint Falls; which by day has ethereal charm, but by night oozes with creepy hues.

It's using this home town feel of small Americana that gives the film its solid base to build from. LaLoggia knows that we have seen all too many ghost stories framed around the creepy mansion formula, so he sets this up in and around an everyday life that most can identify with. This Capraesque type town has a very human feel to it, thus the dark secrets that unravel gain added chills. It's an approach that David Koepp's criminally undervalued Stir Of Echoes would harness in 1999. LaLoggia's movie also benefits from strong performances from the principal actors, with Haas (unassuming with commonsense child mannerisms) & Rocco (emotionally tortured but stoic father) playing out two of the best turns in the horror calendar year.

Guessing the killer isn't hard, and in fact he shows up rather too early. While the motive(s) for the monstrous acts that are committed here are never given (he just does it it seems). But this is a clever and well made film. The monsters lay not with the ghosts that glide in and out of Frankie's life, but in the maniac that kills children and the racist undertones that bubbles behind the surface of Willowpoint Falls' pretty facade. Factors that sadly over 30 years on still trouble society greatly. 7.5/10

The story has sort of a Stephen King/"Stand By Me" vibe going for it, touching on ghostly themes but not really approaching true horror territory unless you want to consider the human monster revealed at the very end. Young Lukas Haas is the principal player here portraying Frankie Scarlatti, the butt of practical jokes by two schoolboy friends, who inadvertently set him up as a principal in a murder mystery that unfolds with the story. Frankie begins seeing the ghost of a ten year old girl who was murdered a decade earlier, who calls out for him to help find her mother. The phantom Melissa Anne Montgomery (Joelle Jacobi) first appears when Frankie becomes trapped in his school's cloak room, courtesy of his scheming pals. The picture segues in a different direction for a bit when the school's black janitor is arrested for attacking Frankie while locked in the storeroom, as the script attempts a look at jumping to conclusions and racial injustice. A happy ending with that scenario doesn't last long, as a grieving mother makes the wrong choice to seek her own brand of revenge.

The identity of the murderer who stalked young kids over the past decade is eventually revealed when Frankie hears the man hum a tune that was associated with the ghost of Melissa. It's all the more horrible since the guy was a long time friend of the Scarlatti family. The title of the picture actually represents two different women in the story - the ghostly apparition of Melissa's mother (Karen Powell) who committed suicide over her daughter's death, and the resident of a creepy old cottage (Katherine Helmond) who has a hand in saving Frankie before he's threatened one final time. If the ending of this film looks familiar, it was utilized once again with slight variation at the finale of 1993's "The Good Son".