“EXTRA ORDINARY”: Things that go bump…

Barry Ward, Maeve Higgins

Published March 5, 2020, by Robert W. Butler at Butler’s Cinema Scene

“EXTRA ORDINARY” My rating: B- (Opens March 6 at the Alamo Draft House and the Screenland Armour)

94 minutes | MPAA rating: R

A supernatural comedy of exceeding drollness, “Extra Ordinary” feels like a mostly successful mashup of “The Frighteners,” “Ghostbusters” and “What We Do in the Shadows.”

Rose Dooley (Maeve Higgins) is a thirtysomething spinster living in small-town Ireland. She’s a big woman, socially inept and saddled with a weird family history from which there is no escape.

Rose is the daughter of Vincent Dooley (Risteard Cooper), who back in the ’90s had a best-selling series of VHS tapes dealing with the supernatural (the film is punctuated with snippets from his broadcasts).  In fact, little Rose was her Daddy’s assistant in his investigations of the paranormal.

Now a grown woman, she blames herself for Papa’s untimely death years before. Even more unsettling, eerie happenings seem to follow her like needy doggies. She used to do consultations for people with supernatural problems, but has given all that up to run her own not-terribly-successful driving school.

Enter Martin Martin (Barry Ward), a widower haunted by the ghost of his late wife.  This unseen and temperamental spirit is always knocking bad food (especially donuts) out of Martin’s hand before he can stuff them in his mouth. Even from the grave she’s bossing him around.

Their teen daughter Sarah (Emma Coleman) is sick of all these spooky shenanigans; she urges her dad to contact Rose and set up an exorcism.

Will Forte

Meanwhile, in a neighboring castle, one-hit pop star Christian Winter (Will Forte, so hammy he should sleep between slices of rye) is planning to revive his stagnant career through necromancy.  To pull this off he must sacrifice a virgin, and he kidnaps Sarah for this purpose.

Now Rose and Martin (who periodically is inhabited by the foul-tempered spirit of his dead spouse)  must pool their talents and save the day.

Directed by Mike Ahern and Edna Loughman, “Extra Ordinary” is crammed with deadpan humor, sight and sound gags stolen from other movies (“The Exorcist”), a handful of judiciously chosen special effects…and unexpectedly endearing performances.

In her debut as a leading lady, Maeve Higgins is funny, heroic and outright huggable as the good-hearted-but-lonely Rose. And Ward may very well be the natural successor to Chris O’Dowd as a purveyor of decent doofussery. Late in the film he gets to play both Martin and Martin’s dead wife, effortlessly shifting from one personality to the other in a world-class display of comic timing.

| Robert W. Butler