Lady in White

LaLoggia shares his unique vision with the viewer through an imaginative and innovative visual style that flows skillfully from traditional naturalism into surreal dreamlike fantasies and back again without ever seeming gratuitous or clumsy. A remarkable film. Read full review

Frank LaLoggia's 1988 film scared the living hell out of yours truly with its singular combination of hometown horrors and operatic tragedy. Read full review

Here are the bones of an ordinary ghost story. But the writer and director Frank LaLoggia brings them to life with exceptional vitality. Read full review

This probably is as good a nightmare as any impressionable boy could have and still be suspenseful enough to get most adults’ hearts going. Read full review

Although the results are a bit overextended, the film is still something of a rarity nowadays: an evocative, poetic horror film without a trace of gore (and in this respect, closer to a Val Lewton film of the 40s like The Curse of the Cat People than any contemporary models). Read full review

Lady in White tells a classic ghost story in such an everyday way that the ghost is almost believable, and the story is actually scarier than it might have been with a more gruesome approach. Read full review

Writer/director Frank LaLoggia's chiller about the dark underbelly of an idyllic small town is so effectively heartfelt yet also creepy that it's surprising he couldn't parlay it into more assignments. Read full review

LaLoggia clearly loves his chosen medium: He has a passion for filmmaking-for ferreting out unusual angles, for planning elaborate camera movements, for designing elaborate special effects-that sometimes leads him way over the top. Yet it's the extravagance of his gestures that gives Lady in White its character and imaginative force. [22 Apr 1988, p.A]

LaLoggia directs with creepy effectiveness. Read full review

A winning, if uneven, blend of affectionate nostalgia and supernatural scariness. Read full review

For all its faults Lady in White is never dull. Read full review

The film's flaws are at least as obvious as its strengths. But LaLoggia knows something of childhood's secrets, and has managed to get what he knows on the screen. Read full review

This ghost movie has an overcomplicated plot, but it has a poetic feeling that makes up for much of the clutter.

It's the Hardy Boys as id busters, an entertaining though mightily flawed scalp-tingler with a few too many magic moments: shooting stars and star-splashed skies and glittery ectoplasmic motes and ghosts that fly on strings. Read full review

For all its supernatural vein, Lady in White has an engaging, Hardy Boys feeling about it and, in Lukas Haas, probably the screen's most irresistible performer this side of Kermit the Frog. And every ounce of Master Haas' adorability will be put to the test, because Lady in White is also a virtual junkyard of mismatched ideas and elements, thrown up on the screen in a friendly, haphazard fashion. [22 Apr 1988, p.8]

After he reveals what is ultimately a paper-thin murder scheme, LaLoggia develops suspense, but like the rest of the thrills in Lady in White, it is fleeting. [27 Jun 1988, p.D6]