The Outing (1987)

I love this movie so much

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

Watched this film for the first time since the 80's when it was released. I remember watching this one as a kid and the thing I remember the most is the scenes of the jinn floating around the museum chasing the last few survivors of the film. It is not bad, but at the same time it is not all that good either. Better pacing would have helped immensely, especially in terms of the kills within the film. We get three deaths right off the bat and then a period of nothing. n another death and another somewhat long stretch of nothing and then we get like seven or eight deaths in like a ten minute span. I would have preferred the deaths be space out more as it kind of takes awhile for the teens to break into the museum so the horror could begin in full instead of just teasing. Another problem is that this thing has the power to do anything, it is a genie, so I would think that every death is going to be unique and awesome. Well, that almost happens, but not entirely. We get two people torn in half, two people killed by snakes and multiple stabbings too. So, there were some good kills, the plot was interesting, but they needed more variety to the kills and maybe a better setting too.The story has these three horrible people going to an elderly ladies house so they could find some money. Well, they drag the old lady from the bed, beat her and then put an ax into her head after they only discover a lamp and no money. Well, some sort of force causes the elderly lady to reanimate and take care of one of the intruders and tears one of them in half and takes care of the female intruder too. Well, the lamp ends up at a museum where a girl makes a very flippant wish and then we meet two more horrific people, one of which the girl used to date. I don't find it hard to believe that she dumped him, but I do find it hard to believe she ever dated him in the first place. Well the school has a field trip to the museum where the girl who now sports the same bracelet as the old woman and seems under somethings control, her boyfriend and two other couples decide to sneak back into the museum after hours for a sex party! Well, the lamp is home to a jinn and it begins to kill and make good on the girl's wish as she is to become the lamp's keeper! If there is anything that movies from this time period have taught me, it is that young adults in the 80's always seemed to want to go to the most complicated place ever to have sex parties. Who knows why, but I've seen them going to malls, mausoleums, old mortuaries and in this film a museum. They just over complicated things back them as they would rather circumvent security systems or some such than simply go to the home of someone whose parents were gone or maybe even to one of those cool parents' houses who would not care if they were getting it on! Just makes me chuckle, and why the heck would there be a regular looking bathtub with curtains that looked as if it belonged in a house in a museum? I could see a shower stall, but not what was in this museum's basement.So, it had its moments and it had your typically dumb 80's teens doing their usual breaking and entering to get some. What it needed was better pacing. Seriously, they had lots of death, but it was so condensed that one minute everyone is alive and getting it on and the next they are all dead! There were too many horrible people in this one too. The first group being the intruders at the beginning and then the two jerks that should have been in jail after pulling a knife on one of the teens and attempting to assault a teacher. They went over their allotment of super jerks, though I did like the one death with the mask. One final thought about this film, considering that everyone was pretty much dead at the end, I do think the girl should have just become the jinn's keeper. Seriously, her and the teacher are probably going to jail after all is said and done, because who the heck is going to believe a genie killed everyone?

"The Outing" is a humdrum slasher movie with supernatural overtones. Its confusing plot isn't helped by the fact that the bad guy isn't really shown until the very end. We watch people dying but don't know what's supposed to be killing them. It would be a bit like "Final Destination", if not for the fact that each death is shown in typical slasher style, so we're supposed to be scared of something, but don't really know what. The plot is something to do with a magic lamp that lets out an evil genie. The genie appears to be able to control things, such as spears, and possess creatures like snakes. It takes a while for the movie to get to its typical slasher scenario: a group of teens camp out in a museum's basement and get offed one by one. Why this would seem like a fun way to spend an evening is unexplained.The movie basically has too many characters, and too much of a convoluted set-up before it gets to the main set piece. With so many people introduced, you wonder why they didn't bother with a villain. It's true it doesn't look realistic when it finally shows up, but it's not like the other effects looked realistic either.

A deadly and powerful evil genie terrorizes a handful of high school kids trapped inside a closed museum at night after it gets unleashed from its lamp. Director Tom Daley maintains a brisk pace throughout and makes good use of the central museum location. The cheesy gore, tacky (not so) special effects, plenty of laughably lousy acting from a lame no-name cast, Warren Chaney's silly script, an opera-singing security guard, and a giant hokey demon puppet all give this honey a certain lovably rinky-dink charm. Moreover, the murder set pieces are quite gruesome and imaginative, with the definite splatter highlights being when one hapless lass is attacked in a bathtub by a gaggle of poisonous snakes and a reanimated mummy biting a guy's throat out. Better still, three fetching females all bare their boobs in the name of leering exploitation. The attractive Andra St. Ivanyi makes a favorable impression with her winningly perky portrayal of the spunky heroine. The bouncy ooga-booga synthesizer score by Bruce Miller and Joel Rosenbaum hits the spirited shivery spot. Herbert Raditschnig's sound cinematography provides a neat polished look. A fun slice of prime low-budget junk.

The Outing is set in Texas & starts late one night as three hoodlums break into the house of an old lady (Deborah Winters under plenty of ageing make-up) in order to rob her money but are disappointed only to find an old Lamp with a jewelled stopper in it, trying to take the seemingly valuable stopper out the Lamp is rubbed & an evil Jinn is unleashed & kills everyone... The police send the ancient Lamp to the state Museum of Natural Science where foremost archaeologist Dr. Wallace (James Huston) takes an interest in it, apparently dating from 3500 B.C. the Lamp may be of significant historical importance & value. Dr. Wallace's daughter Alex (Andra St. Ivanvi) & some of her friends decide to spend the night in the museum & the evil Jinn from the Lamp starts to kill them off, Alex & her dad have to translate the engravings on the Lamp to discover how to defeat the Jinn & end it's ancient curse..Directed by Tom Daley I suspect that this was actually shot under the title The Lamp which it was released under just about everywhere apart from the US where it was retitled to The Outing & I suspect that the three prologue that was cut as mentioned on the IMDb's 'Alternate Versions' page was done so as the title The Lamp actually appears over this shot in the same font & style as the rest of the credits, anyway I have to say I rather liked The Outing or The Lamp or whatever it's called as it delivers in most areas. The opening fifteen minutes are fantastic with a deserted galleon strewn with dead bodies, a robbery, nudity, strangulation, axes in heads & a guy is torn in half but predictably the film can't keep the pace going like that forever & it does settle down into 80's teen horror clichés with ex-boyfriends, silly pranks & a daft idea with little to no motivation behind it to spend the night in the basement of a museum which takes up a fair amount of time but once the evil Jinn show's up again the killing starts it doesn't let up until the final credits with a death or a monster every few minutes. The kills are pretty good & gorier than expected to with some actual proper special effects used & the body count is quite high although we never see what happens to that black bird who was getting raped, do we? At less than 90 minutes it's short enough, it's to the point & has slightly more going on than you may expect with love triangles, romance, evil Jinn's, sex, death, demonic possession & there's even an opera singing security guard (stick around for the end credits as after they finish there's a somewhat random & very brief shot in which he takes a well deserved bow!). The character's are OK but nothing special, the dialogue awkward at times & you really won't mind seeing anyone in this die (in the context of the film obviously, not in real life).Another thing about The Lamp that I liked was that it's pretty original, in a decade that brought audiences many teen slashers with various masked killers the idea of an evil supernatural Jinn was quite cool & before anyone says it The Outing/The Lamp was made a decade before Wes Craven used the idea in Wishmaster (1997). The deaths are pleasingly gory, there's a guy ripped in half in a swimming pool & his legs sink to the bottom in a cloud of blood, people's get axe's stuck in their heads, there's zombies, bitten off fingers, bitten out throats, someone face is cut with a ceiling fan, someone is impaled with a spear, a naked woman is bitten to death by zombie snakes in a bath & a guy's head is crushed inside a helmet & his head is twisted right round plus there's a decent amount of blood splatter to go with the kills. There's a few scenes of nudity as well plus an attempted rape scene. The special effects are good too, when the evil Jin appears at the end it looks a little rubbery but is still a decent enough monster although it's silly voice makes it hard to understand at times. There is actually a bit of atmosphere here as well, the opening sequence set on an old boat one foggy night as in one long shot the camera moves onto the boat & moves around it is rather cool actually & sets the film up nicely.The IMDb says this had a budget of about $2,000,000 which I find hard to believe, that's a lot of money actually although it is well made with decent effects so it's possible I suppose. Apparently shot in Texas although there's some 'Californian Crew' credits at the end. The acting isn't anything special & most of the performances are stiff lets say although Andra St. Ivanvi pulls some odd faces at times which is quite unsettling.The Outing (The Lamp is a much better title) is a decent little hard to find 80's supernatural horror teen slasher with a good body count, nice gore, some nudity & an OK monster. The middle third drags a bit but the opening & closing twenty odd minutes are great, I reckon this ones worth tracking down & watching.