How ‘We Have a Ghost’ Helped Writer-Director Christopher Landon Come to Terms With His Father Michael: ‘He Was a Fallible Human Being’
variety.comTodd Gilchrist editor After writing five “Paranormal Activity” movies, directing one (2014’s “The Marked Ones”), and creating inventive new mythologies with “Happy Death Day” and “Freaky,” “We Have a Ghost” is a decidedly different kind of horror project from filmmaker Christopher Landon: you know, for kids.
To be more accurate, it’s for families — the kind of story that’s not just scary, but funny, and heartfelt as well, like “E.T the Extra-Terrestrial” and other Amblin movies of the 1980s. “They showed kids in peril and that the world is a dark place, but that you come out on the other side of it,” Landon tells Variety. “We Have a Ghost,” which premieres Feb.
24 on Netflix, was also made for Landon’s own family — not simply his two boys, who are slowly advancing to the age where they can start watching his more terrifying creations, but his late father, actor Michael Landon, who passed away in 1991 at age 54.
Now 47, Landon talks about his latest project in the context of his relationship both as a son and as a father himself, and as his pedigree as a horror storyteller deepens, reflects on the kinds of projects he hopes to put out into the world. “We Have a Ghost” seems to exemplify a more personal approach to horror storytelling than “Paranormal Activity,” Freaky” or some other things you did in the past. Absolutely.
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