Three Films Make A Post: Putting the Normal in Paranormal

Extra Ordinary (2019): This lovely little Irish horror comedy by Mike Ahern and Edna Loughman does something very few horror comedies try and even fewer succeed at by actually being a romantic horror comedy. It also manages the difficult task to find a spot from where to poke gently fun at its sad and lonely medium turned driving instructor heroine Rose Dooley (Maeve Higgins) without ever turning nasty towards her or her romantic interest, one Martin Martin (Barry Ward). The other great joy here lies in the filmmakers’ wonderful touch for very specific absurd details, so the evil Satanist of the film is a Christian hippie-ish pop one hit wonder turned occult villain and mediums turn to driving instruction after a tragic death.

The film also gets quite some mileage out of old horror comedy chestnuts like the whole virginity business – it turns out real quickies can be a boon when a movie comes to its, ahem, climax – never afraid of going the low humour route, but certainly knowing when to get high in its humour too.

Dark Light (2019): At its beginning, Padraig Reynolds’s horror film about the monster troubles one woman (Jessica Madsen) encounters when she and her little daughter return to the old empty family home following a divorce, feels promising enough, establishing the basics of its plot well enough, and feeling pretty moody even if it is looking a bit cheap. Alas, the visual promise is pretty quickly sabotaged by a script that never bothers to think anything through, full of people whose actions make no frigging sense.

Or can anyone tell my why a disappeared child doesn’t result in a major attempt at finding it even if the local Sheriff thinks the mother killed her and buried her “somewhere very special”, despite there not having been any time for any clever body hiding since someone last saw the kid alive? These things – and this us just one of many examples in the film, don’t even get me started on its terrible portrayal of mental illness even though that’s one of its central plot devices – simply come over as lazy to a viewer, undermining any trust that the thing actually knows where it is going and if that direction is worthwhile. Turns out it doesn’t and it isn’t, by the way.

The Banker (1989): In comparison, William Webb’s movie about  rich banker Spaulding Osbourne (Duncan Regehr) murdering prostitutes with a crossbow because he believes he is possessed by some kind of South American God facing up against a cop named Dan (Robert Forster) is downright clever. At least, it hates the rich, which is honestly a step up from Dark Light.


The slashing and the stalking as well as the more typical action movie business are decently realized (you know when it was shot, and you pretty much know how it’ll look), Regehr chews the scenery appropriately, and Robert Forster does his unkempt Robert Forster thing. He also isn’t exactly playing your typical cop on the edge; in fact, even though Dan is a bit of a slop, he seems downright nice and polite in moments where your typical example of the trope would already go berserk, which is a pleasant change from the expected to encounter in a pretty minor film.