The Outing Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		1.5
Video		2.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		1.5

The Outing Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 23, 2015

Note: This film is available as part of the Scream Factory double feature The Outing / The Godsend.

The term “lesser of two evils” can be taken more than one way when assessing the strange and frankly at best middling double feature of The Outing and Godsend offered by Shout! Factory’s imprint Scream Factory on this Blu-ray release. There are of course “evils” abounding in each of these films, courtesy of either a demonic genie or a demonic child. But neither film ever whips up much suspense, despite appealing enough premises (however derivative they may be). The Outing has a somewhat convoluted history that helps to explain at least some of its incoherence, and The Godsend has a tamped down approach that keeps its problematic subject matter of little kiddies getting killed one by one in a kind of weirdly traditional British stiff upper lip ambience, but neither film ever ends up delivering the goods, either dramatically or (more importantly for a horror outing) from a fright perspective. As with so many horror films that Scream Factory has released over the past couple of years, each of these outings (sorry) has attained a considerable cult following, though as with many horror film cults, watching The Outing and The Godsend now in the cold, clear light of day, and without the rose colored glasses of youthful samplings of nascent cable television fare may prove to be eye opening (and not in a good way) for even the most ardent fan.

The Outing actually began “life” as a film entitled The Lamp, and the general consensus is that the original version is much superior to this heavily edited redaction. Why the film was retooled is a bit of a mystery (I at least was unable to unearth any salient information online), especially since The Lamp evidently was relatively well reviewed at the time of its release and did decent box office business overseas. But of course that wasn’t good enough for the American distributors, with the result being that close to twenty minutes was lopped off of the film (most evidently coming from the early sequences), with the result being that The Outing is a bit of a confusing mess, at least in its early going.

The film begins with a brief prelude detailing something going on on board a freighter docked in Galveston, Texas in the 19th century. An elderly woman (Deborah Winters, wife of writer Warren Chaney, who multitasks in this film in two other roles, not to mention being one of the film’s producers) is evidently badly injured and expires, with a glowing, tinkling bracelet detaching itself from her wrist when she does. In the meantime, a guy who might be the ship’s captain (not much is clear in this opening sequence) is running from some unseen nemesis, to a predictable (literal) end.

Things then segue to contemporary times when a trio of white trash lowlifes break into a gothic mansion (you expected any other kind of mansion in a film like this?) in order to purloin reported riches. Another elderly woman (Winters again) is asleep upstairs, and a quick view of a photograph seen in the ship in the opening scene seems to suggest she’s the daughter of the original bracelet wearing victim. The three hooligans maraud through the house and end up killing the poor old gal, but when they start futzing around with a lamp they discover, all hell breaks loose and the body count rises substantially.

Finally things matriculate to what turns out to be the main setup of the story, when the lamp and bracelet are shipped off to a Houston museum in the wake of the horrific crime scene. A museum curator named Dr. Wallace (James Huston) is intrigued by the lamp, but is interrupted during his initial investigation of the curio by his daughter Alex (Andra St. Ivanyi). Left alone, Alex discovers the bracelet and puts it on, discovering in short order that she can’t take it off. Meanwhile, Alex’s teacher Eve Ferrell (guess what—Deborah Winters again) is dating Dr. Wallace (who’s a widower) and takes Alex’s class to the museum on a field trip.

At last the film’s quasi-slasher ethos comes to the fore, as Alex and a coterie of her high school friends are trapped in the museum as the supposedly mysterious force within the lamp begins to take them out, one by one. Why this is all happening is never really made very clear, and the film’s climax, where the genie is finally revealed in all its Alien-esque “splendor,” doesn’t do much in that regard, either. Suffice it to say the film’s moral boils down to “be careful what you wish for.” In the case of The Outing, some viewers may be wishing for The Lamp instead, as that version evidently exploited more of the pitch black humor that’s on display with regard to the rednecks in the film’s early scene.

The Outing Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Outing is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Scream Factory, an imprint of Shout! Factory, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. My hunch since The Outing is a reedited version of a pre-existing product, the elements used where inherently dupes, and the look of this transfer certainly supports that thesis. Rather soft and fuzzy most of the time, with a very heavy grain field and inconsistent contrast, The Outing struggles to offer much more than baseline detail in many shots. Elements also have quite a bit of age related wear and tear, along with noticeable fading. There are also a couple of rather odd anomalies, including a rather strange moment of "rippling" (for want of a better term) and image instability around the 16:30 mark that almost looks like this segment was sourced from problematic video rather than film (watch for the crane shot outside the mansion in the wake of the redneck attack). The film's stop motion animation adds to a somewhat variable grain presentation. On the good news front, while the film is really dark a lot of the time (with persistent crush in the darkest moments), and the grain field very heavy, there are few if any of the compression problems that have afflicted some other Scream and Shout! releases.

The Outing Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Outing features a nicely robust lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mix which capably supports the film's well done effects (including a spooky voice for the genie). Dialogue is cleanly rendered and the dated sounding score by Bruce Miller and Joel Rosenbaum is also presented clearly. Fidelity is fine throughout the presentation and there are no issues of any kind to cause concern.

The Outing Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no supplements related to The Outing on this double feature Blu-ray.

The Outing Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

While The Outing has evidently built up something of a sizable cult fan base, the film too often shows its seams where content has been ripped from the narrative seemingly willy nilly. Some may feel that a better double feature with this "outing" would have probably been The Lamp, so that audiences could compare and contrast. Even fans of the film may be underwhelmed by its video quality, though audio is rather robust.