Too much of everything

Pretty Good

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

Here's another unknown little horror gem from the glorious year of 1987 starring unknown actors and an unknown director whose contributions resulted in a messy but entertainingly campy film originally titled "The Lamp". For its U.K release in April 1987 during the peak of the worldwide VHS revolution, this received European distribution for six months until the U.S decided that the most popular films at that particular time dealt with horny teenagers meeting their grisly demises while sneaking off to overnight destinations, Therefore the title was changed to "The Outing" for its American video audience. This is the typical cheesy 80s slasher-type flick with amateurish acting, bad dialog and downright cheap special FX. Everything from red flashing jewelry, neon green eyes and blue lightning represent the strange paranormal activity that results from a monster-like "genie" that torments a sympathetic young heroine "Deborah Winters". Its your classic "Aladdin" story line combined with gory murders and annoying characters. The "genie" of the lamp eventually materializes into a terrible looking demonic creature obviously thrown together with cheap prosthetics and stalks the surviving cast through a museum after-hours. This movie falls into the "so bad its good" category, because there is a certain charming quality to it. The lead characters aren't unsympathetic, and the overall cheesiness, style of dress and weird aura has that 1980s ambiance that newer films lack. Fans of the 80's will love it, but modern era movie-goers would consider it boring and dated. Ultimately, its an unforgotten VHS cult-classic amongst the few and the proud.

"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.

There's no denying that The Lamp has its fair share of clichés and silliness but if you're a fan of the genre you can't help but love it. The story behind it is actually quite original and interesting, there's not many films out there about killer genies is there? And of course there's the typical "3 wishes" trap with the moral of be careful what you wish for (the girl at one point wishes her father was dead). The genie effects used at the end are ultra cheesy, but cool at the same time. I love the camera angles from the perspective of the genie as it floats along corridors. The best camera view is one that is apparently from 'inside' the lamp. Obviously they would have done this with a piece of red plastic over the screen, but it's still a cool trick. The deaths are decent, but weren't very gory (at least in the VHS version I watched). If you're a fan of slasher films, I would add this to your collection. It's unique in its own way and probably one of the only slasher films with a killer genie in it!