EXTRA ORDINARY – A Review by Cynthia Flores
Extra Ordinary is about Rose (Maeve Higgins), a sweet, lonely driving instructor in rural Ireland, who is gifted with supernatural abilities. Rose has a love/hate relationship with her ‘talents’ and tries to ignore the constant spirit related requests from locals. She has been out of the ghost business ever since the unfortunate incident with her partner and father Vincent (Risteard Cooper) when she was much younger. However, Christian Winter (Will Forte), an American washed-up, one-hit-wonder rock star, and his wife Claudia (Claudia O’Doherty) have made a pact with the devil for a return to greatness! He puts a spell on a local teenager Sarah (Emma Coleman), making her levitate so on the blood moon he can sacrifice her in exchange for a hit album. Her terrified father, Martin Martin (Barry Ward), asks Rose to help save his daughter. Rose has to overcome the fear of her supernatural gift and work with Martin to save the girl. With the help of her very pregnant sister, Sailor (Terry Chandler), and a little luck, Rose may be able to beat the devil and win the heart of Martin.
Extra Ordinary is not a fast-paced film with cool special effects and a screaming soundtrack. Instead, it’s a slow burn kind of situational comedy that is at times laugh out loud funny. You’ll enjoy catching all the throwaway lines about Ghostbusters and The Exorcist that go between Martin Martin and Rose. And they nail the rhythm of rural Irish folk dealing with less than epic hauntings. When asked why they chose to make such a silly horror rom-com, the writing/directing team of Mike Ahern and Edna Loughman were not shy about their reasons. “We have very deliberately flipped the Horror movie idea that all hauntings are these big powerful demons that tear people apart and ravage bloody revenge on the living. We want the opposite of that. Hauntings can’t be seen because ghosts are small and a bit crap. They are a bit like humans, stuck in a situation they don’t like with low energy and can’t figure a way out.”
Usually, I’m not too fond of horror films because, well, they’re scary. Duh! But I really enjoyed Extra Ordinary because it was more silly than anything else. This little Irish film does for ghosts and hauntings what the 2004 British comedy Shaun Of The Dead did for zombie films. It makes what usually scares us very funny.
I give Extra Ordinary a 4-star rating. The literal and figurative climax at the end of the film is worth the price of admission.
Directed by: Mike Ahern, Enda Loughman
Written by: Mike Ahern, Damian Fox, Maeve Higgins, Enda Loughman
Rated R
Running Time: 1hr 34min
Comedy / Horror
Limited Release: March 6th Texas Theater, Alamo Drafthouse Cinema – Lake Highlands, North Richland Hills
Starring: Maeve Higgins, Barry Ward, Will Forte, Claudia Winter
The Selig Rating Scale:
5 Stars – Excellent movie, well worth the price.
4 Stars – Good movie
3 Stars – OK movie
2 Stars – No need to rush. Save it for a rainy day.
1 Star – Good that I saw it on the big screen but wish I hadn’t paid for it.
