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Halloween Extravaganza 2006
The Lady in White
Did you ever see a dream, well I did...
The Lady in White is one of those nostalgic movies that tries to bring some wholesome entertainment to the modern age. It centers around the story of the narrator who has gone on to become a horror writer as an adult. The movie begins with him returning to
his midwestern home town for a visit. From there, the movie quickly cuts to his childhood. It's the basic all american 1950s childhood we all seem to have tucked away in our psyches. a supportive family (even if the older brother is abit of a bully sometimes), the dogs, the bikes, the friends, and the small town guy who likes to rape and kill children.
It's the same childhood my parents seem to recall from time to time, sans pedophile. Anyhow, the main character/narrator lives this idyllic life and everything is great. Better yet, it's halloween and he's headed to school complete with his dracula mask and jack-o-lantern. Well, some of the bullies in his class decide to pick on him and end up locking him in the classroom coatroom where he ends up stuck for the night. He misses out on the treats, but he does get to see the ghost of a young girl re-enact her murder in that very coat room.
So the night's not a total waste. To make it even cooler, the guy who killed her breaks back into the coat room to look in the heating vent, notices Frankie and the tries to muder him too. Frankie survives, but he's shaken both because he was almost killed by a guy who probably wanted to touch his butt, but because he saw a girl get killed.
Being a small midwestern town in the 50s where several children have been murdered, they do what any sensible small town folk would do: they blame it on the local black guy. After all, he works at the school and was found on school grounds that night. It was either him or the local communist sympathizer. But that's OK because it's now Christmas time and being a young boy, Frankie's looking forward to his presents.
And Christmas would be fine if the stupid ghost of that stupid girl that got murdered didn't keep bothering Frankie. It seems that he just can't forget the whole thing about her being murdered, so he decides to sneak back into the cloak room and open up that heating vent to see if he can find what that killer was looking for. And Frankie does just that and manages to uncover several artifacts from years now past. But do any of those artifacts have any signifcance with the murder?
Frankie figures out that a hair clip belonged to Melissa, the girl that was murdered, and he's suspicious about an old class ring he found in the vent too:
Oh, the black guy gets killed after being acquitted. Back to the movie, Frankie figures out that Melissa is just looking for her mother. Turns out her mother is the lady in white, a ghost because she threw herself off of a cliff after finding her daughter's body. But Frankie has problems of his own. The pedophile knows that he has the ring. You see, he's also a long time friend of the family. But Frankie doesn't know he's the pedophile until he tries to apologize to Frankie about the whole almost killing him thing. I guess it's alright to kill children as long as you keep the whole thing on an impersonal basis.
I don't know why this guy wasn't suspected after the first child was killed, but come on, he has pedophile written all over him. Didn't the family figure this out after this guy never married, had kids, and spends all his holidays with Frankie's family????? What else does he have to do, grow a mustache?
Frankie soon learns the folly of his ways when the confession turns into a chase. You see, the guy just wants his ring back to that he can go back to killing kids in peace instead of landing himself in jail. Frankie runs and runs from the killer and ultimately ends up back at the cottage where the lady in white lives. The pedophile is about to get him when Frankie is saved by the local town recluse who knocks the pedophile out.
The recluse turns brings Frankie into the cottage, puts him in Melissa's bed, lights a ton of candles, and the gets strangled by the pedophile. It's not clear why she was ever in the movie. So they chase continues with the whole cottage being set ablaze and the pedophile trying to throw Frankie over the cliffs.
The pedophile failed to realize just how hard it is to pick up a kid and throw them off a cliff when they're not unconscious. Frankie's holding on for dear life and manages to keep a hold of the pedophile. The dance goes on and on when Frankie finally loses, gets thrown over and ends up hanging from the cliff side. The lady in white intervenes just in time by knocking the pedophile over the cliff with a lightning bold and saving Frankie. She then gets reunited with her daughter in what has to be one of the worst special effects sequences of the 1980s.
Frankie's dad then arrives with the police in time to watch the pedophile fall from the cliff and then they all sit around watching the cottage burn down, giving no thought to the fact that the reclusive woman inside might still be alive...
The Lady in White is one of those movies that people either love or have to force themselves to get all the way through...it wasn't easy, but Bear and I made it.
-Mark
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