The Outing

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.