Sometimes charm is reason enough to recommend a film, even if everything else about the project feels a little fly-by-night. Mike Ahern and Enda Loughman’s horror-comedy Extra Ordinary may not hit all the right notes, but there is something downright adorable about the film that is keeping this reviewer from affixing it a lower score.
Most of that charm emanates from Maeve Higgins who stars as Rose Dooley, a driving school instructor in a small Irish village. We learn early that her deceased father, Vincent (Risteárd Cooper), the host of lo-fi television show “Investigating the Paranormal,” possessed the ability to communicate with the dead. Rose shares this gift, but rather than acknowledge the dancing toasters and winking tree branches moved by spirits in her town, she shuns her second sight and ignores requests from other villagers to help them with pesky poltergeists. See, the perpetually single Rose believes that she may have had a part in her father’s demise and her guilt keeps her away from the spirits.
Of course, one can’t have the ability to talk to ghosts in a movie and not use it. Imagine if Whoopi Goldberg told Demi Moore to fuck off and then never came around in Ghost? Strange things are afoot in Rose’s little town. She soon meets widower Martin (Barry Ward), whose young daughter, Sarah (Emma Coleman), has been put into a trace. Little do Martin and Rose know but Sarah is part of a Satanic ritual enacted by one-hit wonder musician Christian Winter (Will Forte), who has struck a deal with the devil to get his mojo back. All he needs to do is wait for the blood moon to come and hand a virgin over to Satan and Christian will be back on the pop charts.
Can Rose and Martin save Sarah? Can Rose overcome her guilt and start talking to ghosts again? None of this would matter if Extra Ordinary featured someone else other than Higgins. While most of the other actors play their roles somewhat broadly, Higgins imbues Rose with layers of sadness. She is alone and lonely, and as she falls for Martin, who is literally haunted by his dead wife, Rose reveals the pain that resides just behind the jolly façade she has cultivated.
When the ghosts do finally appear in Extra Ordinary, don’t expect anything even in the realm of what Ghostbusters had to offer back in 1984. There is a lot of silliness here, but if you buy into the movie’s low-key je ne sais quoi, it is quite a fun little ride. Not every joke lands, not by a longshot, but there are plenty of risible moments that do work. In many ways, watching Extra Ordinary is akin to seeing your friends in community theater mount a production of Little Shop of Horrors. There is an ineffable earnestness that keeps the whole venture together, even when it threatens to slide into chaos, a sincerity that should keep Extra Ordinary going well into its own afterlife on a streaming service.
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