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.

Three Films Make A Post: It'll cost you an arm and a leg...

Ghostbusters (2016): Unlike some guys who really seem disturbed by the mere concept of a film with female protagonists, I really wanted to like this one. Unfortunately, I think it’s about as funny as a funeral (so typical for Paul Feig movies and me), with oh so many non-starter jokes without punch lines, scenes that go on endlessly for no particular reason, pacing problems, a total lack of the urgency the plot of the original Ghostbusters had while actually being funny, badly defined characters, boring ghosts, and an all-around lackluster air I find completely befuddling given how beloved the first original Ghostbusters movie was.

There’s really no good reason why this one isn’t better – the money’s there, the people involved seem actually enthusiastic about the project, yet still it’s on the same level of blandness as Legend of Tarzan.

Satanic (2016): There are two or perhaps three scenes in Jeffrey Hunt’s occult teen horror film that suggest potential for at least mild creepiness. Unfortunately, these scenes are in a movie that mostly plays out like a mediocre (cable) TV movie, only that most TV movies nowadays don’t waste half of their running time before the actual plot starts. This one, alas, leaves us with thirty minutes of actual narrative and nearly an hour of various kinds of feet-dragging – and not any interesting kind of feet dragging. The acting’s less than helpful, too, with most of the young pretty things seeming out of their depth even when asked to portray even the most basic of emotions.

I can’t imagine who the supposed audience for this thing is – teen horror fans can do so much better, TV movie horror fans too, and the trash and gore hounds will fall asleep early and not miss out on anything.

Worry Dolls aka The Devil’s Dolls (2016): That does make Padraig Reynolds’s Southern US set horror film something like the star of this post. Despite a rather clunky script – just take as an example how the way the film decides to use to get the titular dolls into the wrong hands also makes the cop hero look like the most incompetent man alive or the treacly clichéd way the film portrays the guy’s relation to his little daughter – the film is at least entertaining, from time to time even moody, and certainly acted competently enough. There are also some rather neat bloody sequences as well as some well-realized suspense sequences that suggests – as did the director’s Rites of Spring – that Reynolds is just a decent script away from turning out a truly good movie.

Three Films Make A Post: It's coming from another world... TO STAY!

Youkai tengoku: Ghost Hero aka Monster Heaven: Ghost Hero (1990): The titular ghost hero might be the wettest blanket who ever won the reluctant hero contest, and the yokai costumes in this rather confused comedy/horror/fantasy thing are mostly godawful. Macoto Tezuka’s (Osamu Tezuka’s son, if the IMDB info is correct) film also suffers from a bad case of feet-dragging, with little of interest happening in the first forty minutes of this 73 minute film.

The crazy that then arrives is not really enough to turn things around but at least we get a demonic samurai, lots of talk about virginity and the really rather unforgettable scene of a (toy) skyscraper-sized woman crunching on (the toy version of) said samurai. Well, and the rather disturbing info that yokai are now in rock bands.

Rites of Spring (2011): This bit of indie horror by Padraig Reynolds looks rather good, is well paced, well enough acted and still isn’t all that interesting. Its attempt to pair up a well-worn type of crime film with a just as well-worn type of horror movie is probably an attempt at the next best thing to originality but the way the two plot lines connect in the end feels most of all contrived (with another, absolutely needless contrivance added for funsies). There’s just so little there here, except for enough technical ability in front of and behind the camera to make you go “’s okay, I guess” after watching it.

The Dead 2: India (2013): I’m not as happy with the second The Dead film as I was with the first one. The Ford Brothers are still very fine budget directors, and this is a perfectly watchable and entertaining film with half a dozen or so scenes that are more than just that, but as a whole, I found this one much less impressive. The zombies are less creepy, the plot’s attempts at Hinduism and melodrama are somewhat risible, and the acting’s through the bank not very good, with everyone being a bit shriller than necessary or helpful.