Worth Your Valuable Time (Sort Of)

The ten-year-old version of myself thought this movie was scary as shit. As it turns out, after watching it over the weekend, Girlfriend and I have determined that the ten-year-old version of C-dog was a total pussy and, were he here today, we'd shove him over and take his sneakers.

However, Lady in White is totally worth watching. Why? Because it's a perfect example of a very particular kind of film making... specifically, the kind that's undertaken by an overly-ambitious, slightly crazy writer/director that knows he's going to be exposed as a fraud and, thus, tries to shove as much into one movie as humanly possible. What's left behind, after it's all said and done, is a movie so bloated and bonkers, it's like a drunk homeless guy with a thyroid problem hobbling around in the park screaming about ghosts. In other words, it's hilarious.

Okay, let me try to explain this movie to you...

Basically, this is a movie about a kid that gets locked in his school's coat closet as part of a Halloween prank and, while huddled on a high shelf, witnesses the ghostly reenactment of a little girl's murder at the hands of an unseen assailant. This, incidentally, was the scene that haunted (no pun intended) my dreams for years. Watching this little girl all glowing and transparent get tossed around and strangled by an invisible man... it was something that, to a youngster with an overactive imagination, seemed entirely plausible and just the sort of thing that quite likely happened all the time in dark rooms in the middle of the night. This two-minute section of film stuck with me, was burned upon my young mind like scars on the flesh of an arson victim, and it fueled the purchase of many a nightlight, as well as about $150 worth of my childhood therapy sessions. Watching this scene today... yeah, it doesn't really hold up. I mean, I can still see how it would be completely freaky-deaky to a kid, but... to an adult... it just looks like some bad special effects combined with an abuse of mood-lighting rarely seen outside of a state fair haunted house.

But whatever, that doesn't matter... the rest of the movie is a treat on it's own. One best enjoyed with several six-packs of beer, the recreational drug of our choice, and/or a couchful of your favorite wise-ass friends. Because Lady in White is absolutely out of control; illicit substances and goofin' off are only going to improve matters.

So, as I mentioned earlier, it becomes pretty clear early on that the film's writer/director Frank LaLoggia knew his time behind the camera was limited. Because of this, he for some reason tried to make four different films at once. There's the aforementioned ghost story, of course. Then there's also the To Kill A Mockingbird-esque tale of the school's black janitor who gets framed for the young girl's murder (as well as all the other murders of young children that have mysteriously happened over the last ten years). And then there's the story of the titular Lady in White, who's a recluse or a ghost or something and lives alone in a couple of different houses and plays the piano and occasionally stares menacingly through people's windows. And, finally, there's the movie about wacky Italian immigrants who yell at each other, make pasta, and try to sneak cigarettes in as wacky manner as humanly possible. All of which naturally leads to an unformed mess of a film that, in trying to do four things at once, never really accomplishes much with any of them and is thus just a random jumble of scenes that wouldn't make any more or less sense no matter in what order they were shown.

Fortunately, the whole thing is spiced up with a few "Hey, look at all the tricks I learned in film school," scenes... there's horribly unnecessary blue-screen shots and flashbacks that appear in character's eyeballs and disco sparkles flying into the sun and people commanding lightning with their fingers and flying ghost comets that form hearts and the most psychotically burning house you've ever witnessed and... oh kids, the list goes on and on. But believe me when I say LaLoggia directed the shit out this movie in all the worst ways, to an excellent, vomiting-from-laughter, degree. Also of note...

-Uncomfortable masturbation references
-A certain character getting shot in the face and killed out of nowhere
-The whole movie stopping for a baby alligator chase
-The identity of the killer being telegraphed way early (hint: it's the one character who has no business being in any scene, but pops up anyways to remind the audience that he's around so you don't forget him later on during the climax)
-And, to seal the deal, Mona from Who's The Boss? plays the Lady in White. Oh yes. The movie goes there.

It's really just a trainwreck-meets-a-factory-explosion-during-a-hurricane of a movie and, if you like that sort of thing, you should totally check it out. Sort of. I mean, don't cancel plans or anything, but you know... if you've got the right set up (beer, drugs, friends), then you could do a lot worse.