A Guardiã da Lâmpada Maldita

The Outing is a textbook example of how great artwork can entice you to pick up a movie from your local mom and pop video store's shelf. Now, the status of the movie inside said case could be questionable, but how can you pass up that art? Luckily The Outing is not that bad. Granted, the acting could use some touching up and the formula is an old one, but the gore effects stand out and the sheer eighties-ness of the piece shines through. The Outing (aka The Lamp) is about a group of high school students who decide to spend the night at the local museum. Unbeknownst to them the newest piece at the museum is a genie lamp harboring an evil Djinn. Keep in mind that this was many years before Wishmaster was made. When the horny teens decide to split up and explore the place (and each other) the Djinn is set loose to work his evil magic. That's the formulaic part. But there are some interesting moments along the way. Highlights include: A man getting ripped in half under water, a scientist being thrown into a ceiling fan, and a nubile teen taking a bath with snakes. It's just campy enough to keep me watching and gory enough for me not to give it a bad review.

This movie was filmed at the Houston Museum of Natural Science. There are a few glimpses of the sign in the front of the building and current Museum patrons will notice that the Planetarium is mysteriously disconnected (pre- grand hall) and the "side door" where the kids get back into the building after the building is locked down now leads to a ramp and into the parking garage. I am the Museum's Overnight coordinator now and have spent the night in this same museum many times - unfortunately there is no jin to be found... or is there?

Obviously we've updated the Museum a bit since this was filmed but if you grew up in Houston going to the Museum on field trips take a closer look at this movie for a good laugh. Don't worry - the laughs definitely continue as you examine the plot, dialog, special effects and fashion!

This movie is beloved by HMNS staff and we were especially excited to find out about the secret bathtub/snake room!

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.

"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.

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.