Good Boy Review: A Handmade Horror Film That’s A Tension-Filled, Yet Earnest Tribute To Man’s Best Friend

Having an animal nearby in our households and/or in those of our family and friends is a constant throughout many of our lives. And having a dog in particular often feels like this symbiotic relationship where us humans get unconditional love, protection and a fuzzy friend that will follow us anywhere in exchange for giving them a safe and fulfilling life by your side. Ben Leonberg’s Good Boy explores this idea thoughtfully in the framing of a horror movie with man’s best friend serving as the protagonist – somehow for the first time in cinema history, and it’s a first-well executed.

Seeing a horror movie fully from the POV of a dog seems like a movie that had to have happened before, and it seems as though it would be too ambitious to get right in the first go. But Good Boy succeeds in its execution and is actually better for being a DIY-vibed independent movie that operates in a pure way addressing the question, “What would a film look like if a dog saw the ghosts in a haunted house instead of the human characters?” What’s revealed from this often melancholy cinematic experiment is an unnerving, yet tender exploration of the relationship between a dog and its owner.

Good Boy centers on a truly impressive performance by the director’s dog.

To reiterate: Good Boy is very much an independent movie. Writer/director Ben Leonberg wore a lot of hats as the movie’s cinematographer and producer as well, and he cast his own dog, an absolutely adorable Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever named Indy. With his wife, he lived on the movie’s set across a three-year period to get the most honest performance out of his non-Hollywood trained animal. The results pay off. Indy gives a rare performance that’s often lost with canine actors.

Good Boy starts when Indy (the dog's name in the movie as well) and his owner Todd (Shane Jensen) arrive at a creepy family home where Todd plans to isolate himself as he continues to deal with some serious health issues. The house is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, and the story takes place almost entirely inside as Indy begins to notice supernatural occurrences. It’s a unique take on the genre because Indy cannot ask for help here. The powerlessness of the animal protagonist looms over the entire film as he continues to experience the darkness of the new place.

Indy has a big job of having to carry the film emotionally, even though, again, he is a dog – and not one of those talking and/or CGI kinds. You really do feel those emotions with extremely limited dialogue in the movie.

Good Boy almost feels like the perfect assignment for filmmakers or a film studies class to watch and discuss among them when talking about the importance of the technical side of movies, as even with the production's limited resources, cinematography, sound, and editing all contribute to heightening the experience. If you’re all about a lot of lore/interconnected plotlines more than experimentation in those departments, this will probably fall flat for you. It’s all about playing out the concept here.

The horror movie keeps the perspective on Indy the whole time, and with that comes some inherent narrative limits.

Good Boy is filmed from the perspective of Indy, with a lot of low shots that make Todd’s face and expressions obscured for most of the movie. It makes for a unique viewing experience where like a dog, you don’t have the full scope of the human world, and have only a limited perception of what’s happening. There are some inherent narrative limitations with this approach – but that's also why the film has a runtime of just 73 minutes: it needs to retain a certain sense of simplicity and bite (pun intended) in order to commit to its approach.

When there is dialogue, mostly in Todd and his sister Vera’s conversations over the phone, there’s a lack of polish to be registered. Sometimes it feels like the technicality of getting the perspective right was weighed more heavily than the more traditional storytelling details, and that leads to some gaps in the middle of the tense ride. But the third act helps even out some of the squeaks in the floorboards in the script.

The terrors in Good Boy may not be completely fleshed out, but the emotion behind the movie makes up for this.

There’s a nostalgia to the visual style in the movie that may reminded me of Poltergeist, especially since the house itself doesn’t seem like it’s been touched for decades. A lot of smart aesthetic choices are made, with Ben Leonberg manipulating the lighting throughout Indy’s timid odyssey through the haunted house and upping the eerie. As the movie progresses, audiences slowly get a better sense of what Indy and Todd are up against... but remember: indie movie equals indie VFX. Good Boy's story is telling is fresh and rich with symbolism, its loose narrative allowing audiences to project their own experiences on to it, and those who have had their own meaningful pets will find pay off in the emotional third act.

Good Boy is a scrappy indie movie. If you’re looking for wall-to-wall scares and a lot of plot, it won’t be for you. But if you’re a modern horror fan who’s interested in eerie, atmospheric experimentation in the genre with purpose, this is a memorable and thought-provoking watch that makes one want to hold the sweet animals in our lives closer (and with more reverence).