3 redneck ne'er-do-wells break into some old lady's house, convinced she has riches upon riches hidden somewhere in the sprawling place. They find a lamp- your average everydayAladdin-style lamp- and kill the old bat when she doth protest too much. After some struggle the thieves get the lamp open, releasing a glowing green fog that flies up the dead old lady's nose, possessing her. Briefly reanimated, she kills the thieves. The fog goes home again and plugs up the lamp after a job well done.
The dead woman's possessions are brought to the local Natural History Museum for some reason. In a shocking plot twist rarely found in horror films, a group of high school students sneaks into the museum after hours for some beer and heavy petting. The fog is released from the lamp yet again and goes on a killing spree, with a little possession here and a little possession there. Eventually the fog reveals its true form, a giant genie who sometimes glows green and talks in a "scary" voice that was so garbled I couldn't understand anything he said.
The portions of The Outing I described above are those where something actually happens, where there's some friggin' action. The rest of the film is a long, drawn out nothingfest, featuring a strangely violent school fight, some family "drama", and a trip to the museum. When the genie/fog finally gets his shit together and gets down to business and kills all the kids in the museum, it's pretty cool but it's over very quickly. There's more down time than up time in The Outing, which is fine if you're staying up all night watching horror movies and making crank calls. I was a little bored by most of the endeavor, which makes me feel wicked out of touch with the younguns. I give it 5 out of 10 "Now who wants a Crystal Pepsi?"s.
I've never been able to help myself when it comes to the Outing. I just love it. I really love Andra's clothes too! She's the blonde star. I met her once and told her I loved her in The Outing and she was so thrilled. It's her only movie. Shame too, cuz I really liked her. Anyway, I think it's a ton of fun, and yeah it probably goes back to my USA days. I remember seeing this on their Saturday Nightmares show and going bonkers. They hardly edited a thing! At the time I was most impressed. Trivia: Jackson Bostwick, of the Prey and Shazam fame is the voice of the djinn!
ReplyDeleteAmanda By Night
"The Outing" is a rather politically incorrect name these days, eh? Speaking of the USA Network's glory days, do y'all remember Rhonda Shear and "Up All Night"? She was so funny on that show.
ReplyDeleteeven if this movie wasn't worth reviewing, it was worth being able to make a crystal pepsi reference in said review. "Right now, you are thinking of buying a cherry Coke."
ReplyDeleteI saw that film as a kid and LOVED it! Damn it was scary...as hell!Even today, it's not that bad. I have soft spot for that crazy, little, over the top gory little film.
ReplyDeleteIt's funny to see this movie make a resurgence with some Horror fans. I thought this movie would be long gone and lost .
ReplyDeleteI worked on it in Houston with Director Tom Daley and Producer Warren Chaney.
I was the production Illustrator and did all the storyboards for the movie . The production was actually more entertaining than the movie! Crazy stories galore.
And I still have all the original storyboards.
The star- Deborah Winters - was also the casting director.
- Larry Navarro