Extra Ordinary (Amazon) Is Horror-Comedy At Its Wretched Best

Extra Ordinary (Amazon Prime Video)

Starring  Maeve Higgins as Rose Dooley,Barry Ward as Martin Martin,Will Forte as Christian Winter

Directed  by Mike Ahern and  Enda Loughman

Rating: ** ½

If you like that  kind of a thing, then this is  the thing for  your. The horror-comedy genre puts me off. I can’t  fathom how scares can be funny, and really, how  funny can scares be unless  you are  straddling two completely  contradictory  continents  of the comic and the  creepy hoping to strike paydirt somehow, anyhow.

Extra Ordinary a quirky Irish  comedy,  is  a  big  hit  on the  streaming platform. It is inventive  in its writing  and obnoxious in  subverting horror  tropes including   satanic  sacrifices, to  a satirical  crescendo, and getting away  with it. It’s also not afraid to let its protagonists  look supremely silly.  The  heroine  Rose(the brilliant Maeve Higgins) is  no hour-glass figured  siren  slithering seductively on  screen  .She is just an  ordinary driving instructor with some serious spook problems at home.

Rose  is shown as a  bit of a  bumbler and  there lies her and the film’s  reasonable charm.Her scenes as a driving instructor are killingly comic in a nervous kind of way.

The  three main performances are  amiable . Barry Ward  as  the likeable bloke Martin Martin(yes  say that  two times)in serious need of exorcism  services  from his new driving-instructor  friend, possesses(oops!) a rare  quality to make the  outrageously  incredible  and often juvenile  goings-on look believable.

Rose and Martin and Martin have a blast  with the spirits. But the real fun is  yet to come.Enter Will Forte  as a washed-out  rock  ‘n’ roll singer,  a one-hit wonder , who  wants to revive his career by sacrificing a  virgin. He  is  a hoot. Forte is so funny that I  forgave this  fearsome farce  its  excesses  of  self-indulgence  including suspended  bodies  floating in the air , unapologetic tacky  CGs and  plot twists that  seem invented  while shooting.

It’s all fun if you are not in a discerning frame of mind. But if you are looking for  a really scary  exorcism  tale then this is  not where you should  be.