Tuesday, October 12, 2010

The Goosebump Moment -- The Lady in White (1988)



I couldn't find a larger picture of the poster, so you can't read the tagline, but here's what it says:



The year is 1962.
The place is Willowpoint Falls.
Nobody talks about what
happened in the school
cloakroom 10 years ago.
Now, in the dead of night,
Frankie Scarlatti is going
to find out why.

I love the graphics and layout of this poster. It perfectly captures the mood of the film.

The Lady in White is a little-known ghost movie from the late 80's that starred Lukas Haas, who was the little kid in Witness and who now is known for arthouse indie films. (He most recently played Nash in Inception).

Here he plays Frankie Scarlatti, and the scene shown on the poster is probably the best in the movie. Unfortunately, I think the plot falls apart with some unnecessary issues toward the end, but the first hour or so has a great set-up and some great moody visuals.

The color timing of the early scenes is similar to those in the original Halloween, as well as the target film of my next blog post.

But as ghost scenes go, this one is pretty darn disturbing for a PG movie, especially if you can surrender to the set-up and imagine you're the kid...

Here's the set-up: It's Halloween late afternoon in 1962 and little Frankie has been double-dog dared by some of his classmates to go check out the cloakroom, which is supposed to be haunted by the ghost of a little girl that was murdered years before. Of course, just like you or me or any number of preadolescent boys, he succumbs to peer pressure, accepts the challenge and plans on the quickest of run-throughs, just so he can say he didn't chicken out....things don't go as planned.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I never knew what this was called. I must have seen it when I was about 11/12 back when First Choice movie networks were good. Playing all sorts of things I would have never had access to. in pre net days that was golden. Not forgotten about it per say, but it was lurking in the recesses of my mind. Spooked me for quite a while. I am almost positive I watched it alone.
I may have to watch it again.
I found this site through the Halloween countdown and you do not disappoint. I have spent about 2 happy hours browsing your content.