Extra Ordinary (2019)
Directed by: Enda Loughman, Mike Ahern
Written by: Demian Fox, Enda Loughman, Maeve Higgins, Mike Ahern
Starring: Barry Ward, Claudia O'Doherty, Jamie Beamish, Maeve Higgins, Terri Chandler, Will Forte
EXTRA ORDINARY (2019)
Directed by Mike Ahern and Enda Loughman
In UK Cinemas from 25th October 2019
Rose Dooley isn’t your ordinary driving instructor. As a youngster, her supernatural abilities saw her team up with her ghost expert father to solve hauntings but after his accidental death, she’s hung up her spectral gloves to slip on driving ones instead. Repeated attempts from local residents to get her to exorcise their haunted wheelie bins and other inanimate-but-now-animate objects have failed but an impassioned request from a man named Martin who’s deceased wife’s spirit continues to haunt his house convinces her that she should use her abilities once again. It helps that she fancies the pants off him too!
When washed up, one-hit wonder Christian Winter makes a pact with the devil in exchange for a second chance of a hit musical career, he targets a virgin sacrifice in the village. As the only person with the knowledge to be able to stop his heinous act, Rose realises she has to fully embrace her supernatural talent if she’s to save Christian’s victim from certain death.
Irish comedy EXTRA ORDINARY brought the house down at Grimmfest 2019 with laughter roaring throughout the auditorium. With its light-hearted approach and rib-tickling humour, EXTRA ORDINARY is one of those films that grabs you right from the start with its tales of haunted toasters, pebbles and cheese! Giggles emanated from the audience very early on thanks to these sprinkles of genius delivered via the the retro VHS-style tutorial videos from Rose’s father, an expert in the field of the supernatural, with Rose continuing the hard work and providing many of the laughs throughout the film with the rest of the remarkable cast.
The warm, cuddly character of Rose, played by the outstanding Maeve Higgins, is what really draws the viewer in. She’s a jolly lady with simple tastes. She loves nothing more than finishing a hard day’s instructing by whizzing off her skirt and sitting on her bouncy gym ball in the corner of the kitchen, eating a yoghurt, listening to her numerous voicemail messages left on her driving school answering machine that have nothing do with learning to drive and everything to do with exorcisms and hauntings. She’s fed up and tired of these requests for her supernatural services but sooner or later, she has to give in and embrace the gift she was given to help those in need around her, mainly one Martin Martin; the hen-pecked heartthrob who’s at the end of his tether and who desperately requires her services. As Rose’s abilities need two to tango, she recruits Martin as her sidekick and vessel as he displays the rare ability in being able to communicate with the spirit world.
In many ways, Martin, played with absolute charm by Barry Ward, is her perfect partner. He encapsulates the simple life that she loves and is a dedicated husband, even now to his dead wife Bonnie who bullies him on a daily basis. He makes a formidable duo with Rose as they tackle the town’s hauntings and you can’t help but fall in love with the two of them as we not-so-secretly hope Rose gets her wish of Martin falling in love with her… that’s if Bonnie will let him!
EXTRA ORDINARY is very much about the comedy within its tight script as well as the visual with some exceptionally dry wit from the characters. However, the filmmakers aren’t afraid of including some general daftness either, whether it’s communicating with a haunted wheelie bin and its widow, or having a floating goat used as an example of witchcraft. This film is pure laughs and joy and you can tell that a lot of love went into the making of it.
One of those films that makes you go all fuzzy inside yet still ramps up the tension and anticipation for its ultimate climax, EXTRA ORDINARY is precisely that: an extraordinary blend of horror comedy that is pure relentless fun.
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