Klauen des Todes

A whole decade before Wes Craven produced his evil genie movie Wishmaster, director Tom Daley gave horror fans The Lamp (AKA The Outing), a reasonably fun 80s B-movie that also features an ancient, supernatural creature as its antagonist.

But whereas Wes Craven's malevolent being must cleverly twist his master's wishes in order to bring about pain and suffering, the nasty creature in director Tom Daley's The Lamp doesn't have to resort to such ingenuity: as the master, not the slave, he is free to cause whatever chaos he likes.

This means lots of trouble for Alex (Andra St. Ivanyi), the daughter of museum curator Dr. Wallace (James Huston), who becomes the genie's unwilling servant after trying on a magical armband she finds in her father's office. Unable to remove the trinket, Alex is tricked into convincing her friends to spend a night in the museum, where the genie sets about killing the teens in a variety of inventive ways.

As the genie goes about his wicked business, viewers get to witness decapitation via ceiling fan, an impalement on a spear, a mouldy corpse rising from the dead to munch on a bloke's fingers and jugular, a snake attack in a bath, a surprisingly nasty moment where two guys graphically rape a girl before getting a well deserved comeuppance, plus a little gratuitous nudity, and a very dumb finalé that could only have come from the 80s, a time when cheesiness knew no bounds.

With its iffy optical effects, rather shonky gore, silly monster, ropey acting, and wafer thin plot, The Lamp might not be anywhere near as polished as Craven's film, but should prove to be no less enjoyable, particularly for those already conditioned to similar low-budget hokum from the same era.

If scary movies are supposed to have morals than the lesson taught by this movie is "Be careful what you wish for". Okay, forget the fact that all the "teens" in this movie look too old even for grad school and concentrate on the plot. A girl (Andra St. Ivanyi) has an argument with her father and wishes he were dead. So what? Well dad is a museum curator and he just happened to come into possession of a real magic lamp ("from Iraq") and whoever, or whatever, is inside heard her wish. This isn't one of those nice "Your wish is my command, O Master" sort of djinn's; he has a mean streak a mile wide. When the same girl and her friends decide to spend the night in the museum for a little carnal fun he pops up and starts killing everyone in various exotic ways. Watch for a boy snapped in half at the waist and dead snakes brought back to life to deliver poisonous bites. They had to save the budget for the big FX at the end so we just get to see the aftermath of the really gory stuff. The snake bites and impalements are all shown though. So is this a good movie? Yeah, I thought so. The ending left me wondering though . . .I mean it is kind of inconclusive. What DID that shot of the Pepsi truck mean? Well, maybe I will just have to see it again.

One thing I have noticed about B movies over the years that are made in Texas by Texan filmmakers - they aren't very good. "The Outing" is one of the better Texan efforts I have seen, though that's really not saying that much. It did have a higher budget than usual, which results in a slicker and more expensive look, and also results in a variety of locations as well as a fairly impressive (for the budget) monster revealed at the very end. But is it worth sitting through the 70 or so minutes before the monster is revealed? Unfortunately, no. The movie boasts a number of problems. The acting ranges from mediocre to hammy, but the real problems with the movie are that (1) the movie moves at an extremely slow pace, and (2) the moments of horror come across as "soft", lacking bite and impact. Making matters worse for home viewers is that the DVD transfer uses an old tape master, which doesn't make the movie visually impressive. Believe me, I wanted to like this movie - I love a lot of independent horror movies - but this just didn't do it for me.

A gang burgle an old womans house and kill her after the only valuables they find is a an old lamp, one of the gang rubs the lamp and a genie pops out and sleighs them all.. unlucky for the gang this is a arab type genie called a jinn and it doesn't give ya 3 wishes .

Later the lamp is taken to a museum.

A bunch a kids decide to spend a night in this museum and the genie/ jinn monster carries on the killings.

Decent film with a few good deaths ,a zombie and monster genie and a fair amount of T n' A . The acting is good and the score is good .

Classic 80s routine For some reason this film is also called :the outing .

"The Outing" is supremely cheap 'n' cheesy, crude 'n' clumsy, no budget horror entertainment. Granted, it's slow to get started and the good stuff is mostly saved for the second half. But once the mayhem begins, it proves to be quite amusing. The actors aren't the most professional one will ever see, but who would choose to watch something like this and expect any different? The important thing is that the movie *does* entertain the viewer, if on a somewhat modest level.

A trio of rednecks attempt to rob an old woman. They try to make off with her genie lamp, but they all get slaughtered. Eventually the lamp makes its way into a museum. The curators' daughter Alex (Andra St. Ivanyi) is possessed, or something, and entices her friends into spending some time after hours in the museums' basement. Soon the djinn, or genie, within the lamp is free to continue the body count.

The action in the second half can boast showmanship. The swooping camera-work isn't bad at all and the special effects and gore are substantially enjoyable, no matter how tacky they may be. Among the highlights are a boy chopped in half, a girl attacked in a bathtub by snakes, an opera singing security guard impaled by a spear, and a scientist shoved through a ceiling fan.

The movie also stars the bland James Huston as curator Dr. Wallace, Deborah Winters (from such pictures as "The People Next Door" and "Blue Sunshine") as his love interest,Eve Farrell (Winters also plays the young and old Arab women), and Danny D. Daniels ("Retribution") as Wallaces' colleague Dr. Bressling. Tom Daley handles the directing duties.

All in all, this is diverting enough to appeal to die hard genre devotees.

Six out of 10.