Frankie Scarlatti (Lucas Haas) is a young boy living in Willowpoint Falls, a small town in upstate New York. He lives with the older brother, Geno (Jason Presson), his father, Angelo (Alex Rocco) and his maternal grandparents, Mama Assunta (Renata Vanni) and Papa Charlie (Angelo Bertolini). On Halloween in 1962 two students at Frankie’s school, Donald (Jared Rushton) and Louie (Gregory Levinson) lock him in the school’s cloakroom as a joke. At ten o’clock that night he is still locked in the room when the ghost of a young girl that was murdered ten years ago appears. The girl asks Frankie to help her find her mother.
Moments after that, a man comes into the cloak room and begins looking for something at the bottom of a furnace grate. When he sees Frankie, he tries to kill him. When Frankie regains consciousness his father and the police are there, and he is taken home to recuperate. Frankie finds out that the girl he saw was named Melissa Montgomery (Joelle Jacobi) and she was the first in a line of children that had been murdered in the last ten years, mostly from the nearby city. Since Frankie couldn’t identify his assailant, the school janitor is blamed for the killings.
Later Frankie returns to the cloakroom to find out what the killer was looking for. Underneath the grate he finds several small things as well as a barrette from Melissa’s hair and a high school class ring. Frankie saves the items that he found. Frankie loses the ring, but his brother Geno finds it. Geno begins investigating who the ring belongs to.
Melissa returns from time to time to visit Frankie. One night both Frankie and Geno see Melissa’s spirit. At 10:00 she leaves. The boys rush to the school to see the Melissa’s murder again, but the murderer, not being a spirit, is invisible. The killer takes Melissa from the cloakroom and throws her off the nearby cliffs. Frankie begins to put together the nightly reenactment of Melissa’s murder with the local ghost story of the Lady in White, who is said to have committed suicide at the death of her daughter. Her spirit supposedly prowls the cliffs looking for her. Frankie and Geno investigate Melissa’s death separately. They both come to the conclusion that the killer may be closer than they think.
“Lady in White” was released in 1988 and was written, produced and directed by Frank LaLoggia. It is a horror movie and a ghost story.
Although it is mostly a family film, there are some really haunting aspects to it. Filled with eerie atmosphere and wonderful cinematography the movie pulls you in and makes you pay attention all the way through. Coupled with some really good actors and acting, the film ended up being really good. Although it did not do well at the box office, it has garnered a cult following.
LaLoggia based his film on an urban legend from his hometown of Rochester, New York. According to the legend a young girl was murdered by the suitor of a woman. The woman, who was referred to as the White Lady, haunts the area looking for her lost child.
Emily Tracy, who plays Frankie's mother, is Lukas Haas' mother in real life. The adult Frank Scarlatti was played by Frank LaLoggia.