The Lamp Movie Review

Trailer here.

The Lamp or The Outing is a 1987 horror film directed by Tom Daley and starring Deborah Winters, Andra St Ivanyi and James Huston.

The film begins in Galveston, Texas in 1893. An Arab girl and her mother arrive there and the mother releases an evil jinn from her bracelet. It kills people. The girl takes a lamp and the bracelet with her and runs away. Cut to years later and three people are going to break into a house. An old lady lives there. She gets attacked by them. The burglars find a chest with a lamp inside it.  The old lady gets killed and the burglar rubs the lamp. He releases the evil jinn who inhabits the old lady. The burglars are all killed. The cops come and they seal up the lamp. The lamp ends up at the Museum of Natural Science in Houston. A man called Dr. Wallace(Huston) and his colleague examine it.

Alex(St Ivanyi) is Dr. Wallace's daughter and she comes to visit him. She sees the lamp and the bracelet. She figures out that the two are connected. The lamp starts to open. She puts on the bracelet and it glows. Alex has an ex boyfriend called Mike, who won't leave her alone. She is with a new boyfriend called Ted. Mike attacks him and gets thrown out of school. He threatens her and her friends. Alex asks her teacher, Eve(Winters), about the magic lamp. Her teacher tells her that it is called a djinn and it is evil. The class are going on a field trip to the museum. Alex wants her friends to visit it after dark and stay there for the night. They decide to do it. Alex visits the magic lamp and the spirit goes into her.  Her ex boyfriend Mike hears about this and he is going to stay there too.

One of the curators in the museum is visited by the jinn. He gets killed. Alex pretends that Ted is bringing her home when she speaks to her father. She then stays behind in the museum so she can let her friends in. She tells them that they can stay in the basement. Alex sees her ex Mike and his friend. She leaves the gate open for them. A security guard gets killed by the jinn. The group of friends split up. They start to get killed. Alex and Ted search for her friends. They find them dead. Dr. Wallace is worried about Alex so he calls home but there is no answer. He goes to the museum with Eve, who also happens to be his girlfriend. They look for Alex. Ted gets killed. Alex meets her dad. The jinn turns up in its true form. It wants Alex. They need to destroy it. It gets into Dr. Wallace. He ends up dead. Alex has to destroy it. She throws it into the incinerator. It explodes. The bracelet drops off her wrist. Eve is still alive. They leave the museum together and go off in a police car.

This was a fun film. There were some good moments. I liked the idea of the genie in the lamp and all that. Overall, this is worth a look for fans of 80's films. I will give it a 5/10.