Extra Ordinary: A Cute, Chuckle-Filled Horror Comedy
Filmmaking duo Mike Ahern and Enda Loughman make their feature film debut with Extra Ordinary, a horror/rom-com hybrid loaded with laughs and Irish charm. Finding the perfect blend between wholesome and irreverence, Extra Ordinary delivers a quick-paced tale of ghostbusing and lonely hearts that’s consistently funny and delightfully kooky.
Rose (Maeve Higgins), a mostly sweet and lonely Irish driving instructor, must use her supernatural talents to save the daughter of Martin (Barry Ward) from a washed-up rock star (Will Forte) who is using her in a Satanic pact to reignite his fame.
Extra Ordinary is framed around an episode from a VHS series created by Rose’s father, Vincent Dooley (Risteard Cooper), called “Talents.” It’s an amusingly tacky and dated looking collection that capitalizes on 80s nostalgia, while also hilariously lampooning paranormal activity. It’s a great little open that wraps you up in the story, delivering immediate laughs that sync you up the film’s uproarious silliness and undeniable charm.
From there, we’re introduced to the sweet and lonely Rose, a driving instructor with supernatural “talents”, including the ability to send wayward spirits into the afterlife, which she’s stopped utilizing after an unfortunate paranormal accident that killed her father when she was a child. Ignoring the fleeting haunts that Rose catches in passing and the many calls begging her for supernatural assistance, Rose goes about her life giving driving lessons, until the humorously named Martin Martin takes driving lessons as a rouse to get her assistance with his nagging wife, Bonnie, who’s since passed away but hasn’t truly left. Meanwhile, the one-hit wonder, Christian Winter has fallen into Satanism and is anxiously awaiting the blood moon so he can sacrifice a virgin in exchange for one more hit record.
Somewhat of a mash-up between Ghostbusters and The Exorcist that’s perfectly in line with the rapid and cheeky humor a la Edgar Wright’s Cornetto trilogy, Extra Ordinary perhaps puts too much emphasis on the ordinary by playing a bit too much with familiar ingredients. It borrows a lot of pages out of Shaun of the Dead’s playbook specifically, but thankfully, everything feels genuinely inspired. The cast and crew have their hearts in the right place and are on exactly the same page when it comes to tone and comedy. While it doesn’t have the kind of monumental reach that Shaun of the Dead possesses, it still strives to aim high.
The laughs come fast and remain consistent. There’s seriously a joke every other line and a different gag every other minute. The film and its performers manage to squeeze the comedy out of just about every angle; although, both lean rather heavily on the cartoonish and the gross as a comedic crutch for much of its runtime. Not everything lands with the kind of gut-busting authority one hopes to get out of a comedy, but the consistency of the films steady stream of chuckles and frequent delights is unwavering.
Performance-wise, Will Forte is full on caricature mode and he delivers a lot of laughs with his quirky character; however, his Aussie wife Claudia Winter, played by Claudia O'Doherty, tends to steal scenes away from him. Maeve Higgins is a ray of sunshine; she gets laughs and audience sympathy with grace and easy. The real star of the show is Barry Ward, who gets to have a lot of fun with physical comedy, bouncing between Martin Martin and the other spiritual personas who inhabit his vessel.
Unfortunately, the film feels slightly incomplete in its choice to abandon the Vincent Dooley’s VHS framing device in the film’s third act, causing things to not fully congeal as much as they could. Luckily, things feel complete enough, and the film’s infectious charm more than makes up for any ill feelings, creating an experience that will have you laughing, smiling, and ultimately uplifted.
Recommendation: If you like horror-comedies full of light-hearted charm and clever silliness, you should definitely give Extra Ordinary a go!
Rating: 3.5 ectoplasm jars outta 5.
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