We Have a Ghost

In Netflix's family-friendly adventure We Have A Ghost, David Harbour plays a ghost who goes viral. Read our review.

Landon, who directed the Vince Vaughn slasher Freaky and the Happy Death Day films, is a competent director, but We Have A Ghost is a mess. Nothing in the film feels original, We Have A Ghost can’t escape the heavy weight of its influences. in We Have A Ghost and Ernest is a likeable supernatural being. There are also some similarities between We Have a Ghost and Harbour is clearly having the time of his life and most of the film’s best gags involve him. Harbour plays Ernest, a ghost haunting the house that Anthony Mackie’s Frank and his family have just purchased.

Christopher Landon makes wonderfully quirky horror films that defy the typical cynicism of the genre nowadays. He avoids the pretension of “elevated horror” ...

Leslie Monroe [Jennifer Coolidge ](/cast-and-crew/jennifer-coolidge)as Judy Romano, the West Bay Medium [Erica Ash ](/cast-and-crew/erica-ash)as Melanie Presley [Isabella Russo ](/cast-and-crew/isabella-russo)as Joy Yoshino [Niles Fitch ](/cast-and-crew/niles-fitch)as Fulton Presley [Faith Ford ](/cast-and-crew/faith-ford)as Realtor Even as “We Have a Ghost” sags in places, it never completely fades into the dull background of Netflix originals of late. Father Frank ( [Anthony Mackie](/cast-and-crew/anthony-mackie)) is struggling to make ends meet and to maintain a healthy relationship with his increasingly-distant son Kevin (Jahi Di’Allo Winston, so good in “ [Charm City Kings](/reviews/charm-city-kings-movie-review-2020)” and on “Everything Sucks!”). Of course, “We Have a Ghost” becomes a bit of a whodunit too as Ernest learns about what really happened to him, including the identity of his killer. [Tig Notaro](/cast-and-crew/tig-notaro)) and her CIA boss Arnold Schipley ( [Steve Coulter](/cast-and-crew/steve-coulter)). [Geoff Manaugh](/cast-and-crew/geoff-manaugh), “We Have a Ghost” opens with the Presley family moving to a fixer-upper in Chicago.

Netflix's new movie "We Have a Ghost" features filming locations in Louisiana. The Chicago home is portrayed by two homes in New Orleans.

A convention center in New Orleans was transformed into the CIA office. The mountain background was shot in Bozeman, Montana, and added to the setting through visual effects. Naturally, the Presley family’s new house is one of the movie’s standout stars. “We shot the movie in the dead ass of summer in New Orleans, which anyone will tell you is crazy.” The soaring attic where the ghost, Ernest, likes to hang out was filmed on a soundstage. Ahead, dive into everything else we know about the filming locations in the movie.

A so-so attempt to recall kids films of the 80s struggles to find its own personality amidst its many influences.

The bigger it all gets, the further we feel pushed away and it starts to recall the scrappy disaster of Happy Death Day 2U, which squandered the simple joys of the original by needlessly extending the canvas. There is some mildly interesting familial tension at play between Mackie’s opportunist father and Winston’s disappointed son (a speech about being unable to hide one’s faults when a child gets old enough to see them is effective) but Landon struggles to bring emotional heft to the central friendship. In Landon’s simpler, sweeter low-stakes opening act, the film works best, a charming melange of Casper, Beetlejuice and the aforementioned Amblin classics, gently taking us through familiar motions. “We have a ghost!” is then exclaimed with the words meaning something different to each family member. It makes sense that he would then parlay that into the world of family films and so his Landon has always been transparent about his influences – Happy Death Day recalling Groundhog Day, Disturbia recalling Rear Window (to the extent that Hitchcock’s estate tried to sue) – but here, he’s too busy trying to conjure the vibe of a certain type of film to focus on crafting something of his own.

But his latest role as Ernest the Ghost in Netflix's We Have a Ghost is unlike any character he—or almost any other modern actor—has ever attempted. The gimmick ...

In We Have a Ghost, Harbour brings that same tenderness, which as always is juxtaposed by his giant, gruff exterior. Whether Ernest is giving Kevin an encouraging wink to get him to make a move on Joy, or desperately searching the back of his mind to remember how he died, Harbour conveys everything he needs to without crossing the line into pantomime or saccharine sentimentality. The movie is in the vein of Amblin movies from the ‘80s and ‘90s, with parallels to that era of wholesome yet un-patronizing storytelling found strewn throughout. From there, it’s an avalanche of antics as Kevin and his neighbor Joy (Isabella Russo) fight to keep Ernest out of the CIA’s grasp. The question is, why make a movie in which one of its most recognizable stars on Netflix doesn’t say a word? He doesn’t speak once in the entire movie.