This is one of my wife's favorite 80s horror memories, but somehow the movie had escaped my notice for decades. While rifling through bootleg selections at a recent horror con, my wife was elated to find a copy and share this treasure with me. My immediate reaction, though, is maybe you have to have been there.
Lucas Haas was all over 80s movies and this was the film that introduced him. The tale of a young Italian boy, living with his father, brother and grandparents after the loss of his mother. The movie definitely plays out the theme of loss in many different ways. The boy is trapped in a coat room as a prank and comes to find horrors, both spectral and real. He sets in motion a chain of events that will bring to attention a dozen murdered children, a family of ghostly women and a murder surrounding a molester.
The things that I am going to hold most against this movie are not fair to hold against it. I admit that readily, yet cannot pretend that they don't skew my view of the movie towards the negative, mostly the budget, which brings a harsh light on the quality of the effects available at this time in cinema. I am not against indie horror, in any way. I love it, in fact, but when going back 30 years to watch a low budget horror, it does make the budget all the more noticeable. The movie feels blatantly 80s. While that should never be held against a movie, the best films feel timeless. Yes, Universal's monsters have bad effects that are signatures of their time, but they transcend those limitations to create movies that don't feel so much like products of their time. This movie, though, has many trappings of the 80s. This plays out a LOT in the effects used for the ghosts. They have that cheap, see-though quality that probably looked hokey at the time and looks downright terrible now. At one point I swear you see wires. Lovers of the film will shout that I am being a modernist here, but it removes the viewer from the picture too much to see a blatant look behind the curtains of the effects.
The budget limitations also reflect on a lot of the other aspects of "film making" here, such as the score and the camera-work. They feel empty and do nothing to help heighten the tension or mood of the picture. On the other hand, though, the acting is pretty good for a movie of this caliber. The child actors are never cloying. The grandparents are funny and the adults in the movie, though never given that much to do, play their roles well.
Many movies have the same limitations, though, some that I love and adore. One thing that can help a movie rise above those limitations, though, is a quality script and I think that's what this movie is missing more than anything. I don't feel that the movie ever quite knew what it wanted to be. There are plenty of tame, family-friendly horror films that don't need blood and gore and focus on child characters and end up being greatly successful at creating a good film. This movie, though, seems like it wanted to hide from that moniker of the child movie, creating some moments that are far too dark for the average kid-friendly spook and never hints at the pure magic that helps kids and adults alike love a movie of that tone. The movie never truly succeeds as a ghost story, either. It spends too much of its' time on a half-baked racial injustice angle and the mystery of the molester to ever give its' frights enough buildup and mood to be effective. Though the kids frequently tell tales of the Lady in White, we only ever get one real scene of an actual terror involving the specter and its' played almost more for laughs than scares.
If you want a good ghost story, I can names dozens that are better. If you want a family-friendly frightener, I can name you plenty that are better. This movie isn't terrible by any stretch, but it's painfully average and really not worth your time.
Lucas Haas was all over 80s movies and this was the film that introduced him. The tale of a young Italian boy, living with his father, brother and grandparents after the loss of his mother. The movie definitely plays out the theme of loss in many different ways. The boy is trapped in a coat room as a prank and comes to find horrors, both spectral and real. He sets in motion a chain of events that will bring to attention a dozen murdered children, a family of ghostly women and a murder surrounding a molester.
The things that I am going to hold most against this movie are not fair to hold against it. I admit that readily, yet cannot pretend that they don't skew my view of the movie towards the negative, mostly the budget, which brings a harsh light on the quality of the effects available at this time in cinema. I am not against indie horror, in any way. I love it, in fact, but when going back 30 years to watch a low budget horror, it does make the budget all the more noticeable. The movie feels blatantly 80s. While that should never be held against a movie, the best films feel timeless. Yes, Universal's monsters have bad effects that are signatures of their time, but they transcend those limitations to create movies that don't feel so much like products of their time. This movie, though, has many trappings of the 80s. This plays out a LOT in the effects used for the ghosts. They have that cheap, see-though quality that probably looked hokey at the time and looks downright terrible now. At one point I swear you see wires. Lovers of the film will shout that I am being a modernist here, but it removes the viewer from the picture too much to see a blatant look behind the curtains of the effects.
The budget limitations also reflect on a lot of the other aspects of "film making" here, such as the score and the camera-work. They feel empty and do nothing to help heighten the tension or mood of the picture. On the other hand, though, the acting is pretty good for a movie of this caliber. The child actors are never cloying. The grandparents are funny and the adults in the movie, though never given that much to do, play their roles well.
Many movies have the same limitations, though, some that I love and adore. One thing that can help a movie rise above those limitations, though, is a quality script and I think that's what this movie is missing more than anything. I don't feel that the movie ever quite knew what it wanted to be. There are plenty of tame, family-friendly horror films that don't need blood and gore and focus on child characters and end up being greatly successful at creating a good film. This movie, though, seems like it wanted to hide from that moniker of the child movie, creating some moments that are far too dark for the average kid-friendly spook and never hints at the pure magic that helps kids and adults alike love a movie of that tone. The movie never truly succeeds as a ghost story, either. It spends too much of its' time on a half-baked racial injustice angle and the mystery of the molester to ever give its' frights enough buildup and mood to be effective. Though the kids frequently tell tales of the Lady in White, we only ever get one real scene of an actual terror involving the specter and its' played almost more for laughs than scares.
If you want a good ghost story, I can names dozens that are better. If you want a family-friendly frightener, I can name you plenty that are better. This movie isn't terrible by any stretch, but it's painfully average and really not worth your time.