Fantasia 2019, Day 13: Extra Ordinary
I had one film on my schedule for July 23, an Irish horror-themed comedy named Extra Ordinary. It was preceded by one of the best shorts I saw at Fantasia this year outside of a short film showcase.
Directed by Jason Gudasz, “Place” is a horror-comedy that works well in both its aspects. It opens as a young family moves into a new home, and finds something unwelcome waiting. The place, evidently, is haunted. But the pressures this puts on the family are resolved in an unexpected way. This results in a film that’s spooky, yet that also deftly deflates the tension it raises. The jokes work and set up character points, explaining the conflicts in the family and how the relationship between mother (Emily Green) and step-father (Nick Hurley) doesn’t really work. The images subtly create a tone that works both with horror and comedy, and it ends a series of related vignettes in a satisfying way that ties the 11-minute story together.
Extra Ordinary was written and directed by the duo of Mike Ahern and Enda Loughman. It follows Rose (Maeve Higgins), a driving instructor in her thirties in a small Irish town; she also happens to be the daughter of a long-dead paranormal investigator, and can see ghosts. She’s turned her back on her abilities as a medium ever since her father died during the course of one investigation. Unfortunately, an American rock star named Christian Winter (Will Forte) has plans to revive his career with a diabolic pact, which involves sacrificing the daughter of local widower Martin Martin (Barry Ward). Barry, already haunted by his dead wife, must seek Rose’s help, and hope she’ll return to her ghostbusting ways.
The movie’s a pleasant, entertaining watch that doesn’t do anything especially surprising but does what it does quite well. I described it as a ‘horror-themed comedy’ above instead of a ‘horror-comedy’ because while it’s all about ghosts and ectoplasm and black magic, there’s nothing actually horrific in it. There’s a reasonable amount of dramatic tension, but the supernatural goings-on aren’t used to inspire dread or fear. They’re there to set up gags, and to provide a solid story structure which in turn supports and generates further gags.
It has to be said the plot isn’t too solid in its details. The nature of the pact inspires a deadline in which Rose and Martin race around town trying to get a specified amount of ectoplasm during a night which seems far too long for the amount of activity that takes place. There’s another point where the evil Winter uses magic to locate a vital component of the ritual, only to find out said component is not usable; one therefore wonders why the spell led him where it did.