Please don't spend money on this.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

On a beautiful autumn day, a writer in a taxi stops and steps out into a cemetery in Willowpoint, NY to visit a pair of gravestones. Prompted by his driver's skeptical question he tells his story in flashback, the mode of the rest of the movie. On 31 October 1962, Frankie Scarlatti (Lukas Haas) is a typical nine-year old with a warm and loving family: widowed father Angelo (Alex Rocco), brother Gino (Jason Presson), and two grandparents. Grandma (Mama Assunta = Renata Vanni) goes to great lengths to stop grandpa (Angelo Bertolini) from smoking. There are also family friend Tony (Jack Andreozzi) and "Uncle" Phil (Len Cariou), who was originally an orphan as a youth but raised by Angelo's family. Halloween day is festive in school as kids are allowed to wear costumes. With a taste of the macabre, Frankie in his Dracula outfit reads his "pre-hysterical monster" story to his classmates. "I really liked your story, Frankie, I wish I was as weird as you," says a girl in braces. After school two of Frankie's friends, Donald and Louis, play a sadistic prank on him and lock him in the school cloakroom and run away. While he's alone at night, a translucent apparition of a red-haired, ten-year old girl (Melissa Ann Montgomery = Joelle Jacobi) appears. She struggles with an invisible assailant before dying and being carried away. In the struggle an object falls to the floor into a vent grate. Leaving but quickly returning to find the object, the assailant – now a visible man whose face cannot be seen because of darkness – quickly discovers Frankie (wearing his Halloween mask) and tries to strangle him. Frankie loses consciousness, but is rescued and revived when his father Angelo arrives. Is this coincidence or did the killer let him live? The police on the scene arrest the black school janitor (Harold Williams), found drunk in the school basement. He is accused of serial murders: the deaths of eleven children during the past eleven years. Melissa, who perished in the cloakroom, was the first victim.After recovering, Frankie goes to the school cloakroom and removes the floor grate to locate the missing object that the murderer searched for in vain. He retrieves a jack, a barrette, and a ring. Meanwhile the ghost sometimes returns, as during the Christmas holidays. Later Frankie overhears a conversation between Angelo and Sheriff Saunders (Tom Bower) about the serial murders; Saunders believes that Williams is a scapegoat. Then Frankie confines to Phil a summary of the recent events that affected him. He says that the ring must belong to the killer and that he must have returned for it. The conversation is interrupted by Angelo for dinner time. Phil keeps the information provided by Frankie to himself. Frankie and friends Donald and Louis "visit" the spooky house by the cliff, inhabited by eccentric recluse Amanda (Katherine Helmond), the aunt of Melissa Ann Montgomery. Frightened, Donald and Louis flee, leaving Frankie behind. Soon he too flees and runs into brother Geno, who was out searching for him. He tells Geno about the ring, not knowing that Geno found it and said nothing. When they return to their room, Melissa's ghost appears to them. Frankie explains to Geno that she is the daughter of the Lady in White (Karen Powell), who "haunts" the area. Melissa's ghost leaves at 10:00 pm and is carried to the shoreline by the invisible man who throws her over the edge of the cliff. Then a female white robed spirit appears and plunges herself over the edge. Meanwhile Harold Williams is released for lack of evidence. Wrongly believing him to be the serial killer, a woman who lost her young son violently shoots Williams to death in front of his wife. SPOILER ALERT FROM HERE ON: Back at home, Geno compares the high school ring of his father with the one found in the cloakroom. Comparing and correctly surmising that the rings are of the same year of graduation, he checks out initials MPT (P=Phil) and realizes that Phil is the owner and murderer! In the meantime, Phil and Frankie are practicing archery in the woods. Frankie becomes tipped off when Phil whistles the same tune heard by Frankie when he was locked in the cloakroom. The boy runs away but is caught. Phil says he did not know who Frankie was in the cloakroom because his face was covered by the mask. But he still wants the ring. Coincidentally Phil is clubbed from behind by reclusive Amanda, who takes Frankie to her house. Nonetheless Phil catches up to them and struggles with and kills the woman. Then he tries to throw Frankie off the nearby cliff. The ghost of the Lady in White appears and throws Phil off the edge, however. In Frankie's presence, the translucent ghosts of both mother and daughter reunite lovingly in the sky. But Phil climbs up the cliff and seizes Frankie's leg. Coincidentally and in the nick of time, Angelo's rescue team arrives; Phil plunges to his death. Frank LaLoggia, a good but rare filmmaker, wrote, produced, and directed this eccentric, well thought out but flawed flick. The plot has holes and too many coincidences, such as when Amanda is suddenly around to save Frankie. Why did Phil wait so long to retrieve his ring? And why could he not locate it? The music selection is puzzling and should have been eerie in keeping with the atmosphere. We never discover the murderer's motivation, although the fact that he was a serial killer is enough. The racial subplot is heavy-handed and unneeded. Nevertheless the nostalgia piece and set-designs are certainly well done. And well-drawn are the characters that inhabit the small town and the local businesses. Warmly portrayed are the comforts of a strong family and the characterizations of the Italians (autobiographical?). In short, the movie deserves redeeming high marks for its old-time nostalgia, likable characters, and encompassing atmosphere.

My affection for Frank LaLoggia's modern classic is easy to explain: the film's world is similar to the world I grew up in: small town, Italian grandparents, loving blue collar parents, and cronies fascinated with monsters and ghosts. Where the film departs from my life experience is that it plays out against a background of racial tension and horrifying adult crime. Writer-director LaLoggia so perfectly recreates the 1960s childhood experience that one totally identifies with young Frankie Scarlatti (Lukas Haas) as he's caught up with murder, ghosts, a benevolent madwoman, and a precious family friend with a dark secret. Strong stuff, but executed with intelligence, sensitivity, wit, and an appealing gentleness of spirit (none of which lessens the razor-edged Hitchcockian suspense). I have probably watched this film and recommended it more than any other.

The plot needed a serious re-write. It could NOT figure out if it was a kid pic or a grown-up pic. I figured out who the bad guy was JUST FROM CASTING. I would be not true to myself if I said this was not in the running for worst in genre. It is. It is up there with "Plan 9 from Outer Space"(1959) which is worst in Sci-Fi. Heck, "Hocus Pocus"(1993) was better than this as a comedy horror flick.Failure on so many levels. The special effects were MARGINAL. The plot was also marginal - I knew the innocent black guy was going to get shot. I could easily see the actors wanting to scrub their names off the credits. Don't bother - there are so many better films out there. This was a waste of time.

The first thing you will notice in the film are all the kids - yea it's kid's film. The next thing you will hear are racial slurs coming from the mouth of one of the kids, of course the kid got punched in the face but why all this for a kid's horror film? I had to fast-forward and when I did I heard more racial slurs out of adults and this quickly tore it for me. Why should one be subjected to racial slurs for a film - even if the point is 'unity among the races'? Why not just show unity or friendship between all races in a film instead?! Yes I quickly found this film repulsive and I quickly turned this off this awful film.Do yourself a favor and watch a much better kids horror film instead of this trashy mess of a film - at least I wish I would have read that in reviews before I ever tried watching this.1/10