This Irish import has a feel for the Midnight Madness crowd, but is weirdly riveting, full of wit and the supernatural.
Extra Ordinary stars Maeve Higgins, Barry Ward, and Will Forte. Higgins’ Rose Dooley is self-employed as a driving instructor though his gifts in the paranormal haven’t resulted well, at least in one key case.
The script gets Rose out of being a couch potato by way of Ward’s Martin with persuasion from his daughter Sarah (Emma Coleman) about his ‘nagging’ dead wife. Those Rose hardly dislikes the fellow she’s isn’t keen on getting involved.
When Sarah happens to be put in a trance as part of a sacrifice by a malevolent, faded rock star, Forte’s Christian Winter, she’ll join forces with him before the dreaded blood moon arrives.
It turns out Rose’s special ability runs in the family as we learn after witnessing an old video of her dad at the outset. A quick-witted flair runs throughout the script by co-director Mike Ahera and Demian Fox that can be self-reflexive as well as affecting. And the editing is sharply rendered so as the wackiness hardly overstays its welcome.
Within a nostalgic glow a grittiness lets Higgins prove her moxie, especially in her visage that works well in genre terms. Ward gets to shine in some of the more outlandish moments as he gets to inhabit characters (notably one that is out of this world) that elicits stronger impulses from the onlooker. Forte adds a wicked zaniness to Christian that threatens to go off the rails while Terri Chandler lends an amusing naturalness to Rose’s sister Sailor to make their sisterly rapport agreeable.
This Extra won’t be ordinary enough for some but it offers plenty of riotous, quirky interludes for those who’ll turn out for it mostly likely on-demand or streaming services as a late-night treat.