By Melissa Antoinette Garza
The Outing (1987) aka The Lamp is a lesser known horror entry that borderlines on being good, but is too confused to make it a classic. It certainly has its moments, but there are so many elements that are left unanswered and too many scenes that just don’t make sense.
The overall premise is that our protagonist Alex (Andra St. Ivanyi) is the daughter of a scientist who works at a museum. Her father Dr. Wallace (James Huston) has come across a genie lamp that oddly comes with a bracelet. Coincidentally, Dr. Wallace is dating Alex’s teacher and her class is having a field trip at the museum. Alex goes into the office and steals the bracelet. She then invites her teenage friends to spend the night at the museum after it closes.
The museum itself is where the problems with the first begin as the setting itself is unrealistic. The museum’s exhibits include everything from dinosaurs to spacesuits to Native American and Egyptian artifacts – it was literally a free-for-all. I was expecting to see Fonzie’s jacket or Elvis’s jumpsuit. Every museum I’ve ever gone to has had a single focus – not the case here.
I could certainly look beyond that small oddity, but the rest of the film is just as confused. Since Alex stole the bracelet it appears that the genie within the lamp is controlling her. Her eyes turn green and she’s the one who convinces her friends to go into the basement. Then the tone shifts as the genie escapes from the lamp and begins his massacre while Alex’s possession is just forgotten.
Another aspect to the film that failed was the characters. The antagonists are 30 year old high school students, one of which was Alex’s ex. He tries to run her off the road, pulls a knife on Alex’s new boyfriend, calls the principal the worst racial slur in the book, and gets expelled from school. Understandably, he’s carried away by cops, but never seems to get arrested. He actually sneaks into the museum and is never caught. It goes without saying that the genie takes care of these jerks, but their mere presence after assaulting a classmate with a deadly weapon should have ensured that they’d be arrested. Also, what the hell did Alex ever see in this douche to begin with?
Sadly, the ex is the only one who had any real personality – sure it was that of a douchebag, but he stood out. The rest of the characters were just there to die. None of them had any real personality. Sadly, the “heroine” even fell into the boring lot with them.
All of that said the genie looked awesome. The death scenes were decent. Once the genie was out of the bottle and wreaking havoc there was a fun factor that the movie found. It’s simply the stories around the movie and the lack of depth within the characters that hurt the final production.
Overall, I wouldn’t say this film is the worst out there. The first half with the ex is odd enough to keep the attention of the viewer and the second half has the genie which is compelling enough to watch.
It’s definitely not scary, but I would certainly recommend it for the horror fan who has seen most everything else.
Scared Stiff Rating: 5/10
