One of Netflix’s newest original movies, “We Have a Ghost,” was released on Feb. 24 and is currently at #1 for movies on the streaming service. The cast includes big name actors like Anthony Mackie, David Harbour and Jennifer Coolidge, as well as many up-and-coming stars. After seeing just one trailer for this movie, I knew I had to see it. However, I was a bit skeptical about a ghost movie released in February rather than during Halloween season. Luckily, I was pleasantly surprised.

The film opens on the Presely family, who’s just moved into a classic creepy abandoned house. The main character, Kevin (Jahi Di’allo Winston), begins exploring the attic when he is confronted by a ghost named Ernest (David Harbour) trying to scare him. When Kevin doesn’t get scared, he and Ernest become unlikely friends. However, when Kevin’s dad (Anthony Mackie) finds a video of Ernest on Kevin’s phone, he sees the ghost as a business opportunity and posts the video on social media.

As Kevin gets to know Ernest, he discovers that Ernest can’t remember who he is or how he died. This causes Kevin and his next door neighbor, Joy (Isabella Russo) to launch an investigation into the ghost’s history. While Kevin and Joy hunt for Ernest’s past, Kevin’s family becomes internet famous for their viral ghost videos. This causes a lot of tension, as Kevin doesn’t want to profit off of Ernest like the rest of his family. 

“We Have a Ghost” was a very complex movie. While it broke through some of the classic ghost story stereotypes, it also touched on topics such as familial struggles and capitalism. Although these aspects gave the story depth, it became hard to follow at times. After Ernest is exposed to the public, the government decides that he’s a potential threat and that he needs to be arrested. Adding this part in complicated things even more, as the viewer is trying to follow the storyline of Ernest’s history, Kevin and his dad’s relationship, Kevin and Joy’s relationship, the family’s claim to fame and now the FBI intervention aspect. 

By far my favorite part of “We Have a Ghost” was David Harbour playing a ghost. Ernest doesn’t have the ability to make out words, only ghastly groans — and yet, Harbour was able to convey such intense emotion without even saying a word. The incredible thing is that he was able to do this with a wide variety of feelings, showing his true acting range. Harbour’s aptitude to this part makes a lot of sense, since his ghost character has many similarities with his character Hopper from “Stranger Things.”

Another aspect of “We Have a Ghost” that I appreciated was the realism it brought to the overdone ghost story trope. Instead of being scared when Kevin saw the ghost, he took a video on his phone and started laughing. When his dad caught wind of the situation, his first thought was about how the family could profit off of having a haunted house. When Ernest went viral, there was a montage of TikTok trends centered around him. It was things like these that, although a bit cringy, were pretty realistic and made the movie pretty close to what would probably actually happen if a family found a ghost in their house.

Overall, this movie is definitely worth the watch if you are looking for an emotional rollercoaster that could make you bawl your eyes out (like it did to me). “We Have a Ghost” is available to watch on Netflix.

“We Have a Ghost:” ★★★★☆