We Have a Ghost is a Netflix film about a family who moves into a suspiciously inexpensive house only to find a ghost in the attic (played by David Harbour). The family sees dollar signs in the haunting and soon there’s a murder mystery, secret government agents, a road trip, and all sorts of jazz.

The dad is Anthony Mackie and credit for making what amounts to an ’80s kids adventure movie with a primarily black cast. Everyone is doing their darndest to act out this film… and that’s a lot of heavy lifting since there’s so much damn film to act out. Too much.

This flick is too long and too overstuffed with plots and subplots that are constantly at war with each other for the (pardon me) soul of the story. You could cut out a good 45 minutes to a whole hour and have a complete story… but which story would you have? The casual ghost haunting with a family? The secret government agency? The murder mystery? The road trip?

Not sure a trim would have necessarily worked though since this just isn’t a very good movie. I was amused at first at the Beetlejuician intro with the ghost that people weren’t afraid of. David Harbour tries but since he can’t speak, all he can do is wave his arms around and look mildly perturbed. Anthony Mackie is mostly an afterthought after awhile because the film takes a long detour into a teen romance road trip. The two kids (Jahi Di’Allo Winston and Isabella Russo) are cute together but even their plot seems incidental to all the other stuff going on.

I was so deeply bored and over this film’s total inability to figure itself out. All of this plot COULD have worked in a better movie (or limited tv series). I do not recommend it unless you’ve simply never seen better movies like Beetlejuice, Ghost, Stir of Echoes, ET, Men in Black, any road trip movie ever, or any ghost movie ever.

Score: 64