A black family of four trying to make a fresh start, buy an old, dilapidated house in Chicago. One night, the younger son, Kevin hears noises from the attic and then soon learns that they are not alone. At first, Earnest, the resident ghost, so named by his monogramed bowling shirt, tries to scare Kevin, but only succeeds in making him laugh. Filming Earnest with his phone, Kevin tells him, “Hey, hey, stop. It is not happening bro. I know, it probably worked on everyone else before, but my personal life is like a thousand times scarier than this.”

Earnest cannot speak and does not remember anything from his former life. His circumstances lead Kevin to want to help this sad sack, but otherwise friendly ghost. All this commotion soon brings Kevin’s older brother to the attic. Seeing the video on Kevin’s phone, his brother posts it to social media. Kevin’s dad then sees the video and sees an opportunity to monetize this situation. By this time Kevin and Earnest have develop a rapport and both of them take a dim view to Kevin’s dad’s schemes. The videos of Earnest blow up on social media, leading to a neighborhood circus out in the street in front of the house.

A basic cable TV personality is invited by the dad to come to the house to film Earnest, but instead is so off putting that she leads Earnest to scare her out of the house. The older son films this encounter making Earnest a media phenomenon. Piling on now, a CIA agent gets wind of Earnest and sees in him an opportunity to revive her top-secret paranormal program that had been shut down. Kevin continues to research Earnest’s past which leads to a road trip, and we are off to the races. We Have a Ghost is described as a family-friendly horror comedy and is based on a short-story called Earnest (Pay wall).