Good Boy (2025) Movie Review
Bone-Chilling Terror
Imagine you’re a dog and your owner moves you out of a big city to a desolate, dreary location filled with unfamiliar smells and sounds. Strange people are in your new home. Most of them are scary, but your owner doesn’t seem to notice them. You’re frightened but you have no way to communicate what you’re seeing. Can you protect yourself and your master?
Good Boy is about a *very* good boy named Indy who moves into a haunted farmhouse with his owner, Todd (Shane Jensen). The pair had previously lived in New York City.
Todd, who is apparently suffering from late stage lung cancer, moves them out to the countryside – presumably for the fresher air. They’re staying in the disheveled and isolated former home of Todd’s deceased grandfather. Todd’s sister Vera (Arielle Friedman) warns him about staying in the supposedly haunted house, but Todd is not dissuaded.
This would be a setup for a typical cliched haunted house story, but Good Boy doesn’t tell its tale from Todd’s perspective. The movie is mostly filmed near the ground to simulate Indy’s vantage point. The faces of the human characters are often not visible, since Indy can’t see them.
There’s also an emphasis on loud noises. Indy’s superior canine ears can hear everything much better than Todd can.
Along with the stress of having to adjust to a new home, Indy endures several terrifying encounters with malevolent spirits. Human and animal ghosts inhabit the home. As Todd grows sicker, the spirits become more aggressive.
An Innovative Effort
It’s hard to find a genuinely unique approach to filmmaking these days, but Good Boy‘s dog POV has rarely been done before. The only other movie I can think of that did this is the family flick Benji: The Hunted (1987). Within the horror genre, The Hills Have Eyes Part II (1984) has a notorious dog flashback sequence. Those are the only comparisons that come to my mind.
Good Boy has its share of eerie moments, but it’s not quite as creepy as I had expected. The scares are pretty mild. The most effective moments occur during the dark, tragic ending (more on that later). There’s only the barest pretense of a plot, but I didn’t mind – it would be virtually impossible to tell a complex story from a dog’s point of view.
Director Ben Leonberg, who makes his feature film directorial debut, used his own dog for the film. There are many moments where Indy appears genuinely frightened, which made me wonder if the dog was treated properly on set.
Leonberg explained in an interview that Indy was not scared and his reactions were achieved due to a mix of editing, hand commands, and lots of treats.
All right, I know what everyone wants to know: does the dog die?
Spoilers below!!
Indy does NOT die. However, that doesn’t mean that this movie has a happy ending. Far from it. You’ll probably feel a mixture of sadness and relief (but mostly sadness) when the credits roll.
Rating
Good Boy is one of the year’s most innovative horror films. Indy gives the canine performance of the century! I wanted to reach through the screen and pet him. He better not get robbed at Oscar time!
Rating from 1 (avoid at all costs) to 10 (masterpiece): 8
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