WHAT’S IT ABOUT

A man moves into a new home that has supernatural forces lurking in the shadows. As dark entities start to threaten him, his brave dog comes to the rescue.

MOVIESinMO REVIEW

Look, I’ll be straight with you, I wasn’t sure what to expect when I heard about a horror movie told entirely from a dog’s perspective. It sounded like one of those wild ideas that could either blow my mind or completely fall apart. But director Ben Leonberg’s feature debut, “Good Boy,” surprised me in the best way possible. This 72-minute supernatural thriller manages to feel fresh and genuinely emotional while doing something I’ve never really seen before in horror. The setup sounds pretty simple on paper. A sick guy named Todd moves to his dead grandfather’s creepy farmhouse in the woods, bringing along his rust-colored retriever, Indy. But here’s where things get interesting, we experience everything through Indy’s world. The camera stays low to the ground, faces get hidden in shadows, and we hear conversations the way a dog might hear them, all muffled and unclear. Human characters become secondary players in Indy’s story, which feels disorienting at first but eventually pulls you into this dog’s reality in a way that actually works. What makes this concept click is that Leonberg uses his own dog for the lead role. Yeah, you read that right—Indy is the director’s actual pet, which explains why this animal gives what might be the most impressive performance I’ve seen from a four-legged actor. The dog shows fear, confusion, loyalty, and heartbreak with just his eyes and body language. I’m not joking when I say this pup acts circles around some human performers. Each concerned look, protective posture, and puzzled look are so clear on screen. It is evident that it took three years of training to get this performance, and it shows. The bond between director and dog creates something special. The film begins with Todd leaving the hospital after an unknown illness has put his life in jeopardy. His sister Vera doesn’t want him going to their grandfather’s old house, she warns him it’s haunted and far from medical help, but Todd goes anyway. From the moment they arrive, Indy senses something wrong with this place. The house feels alive with shadows and strange sounds. Todd can’t see or hear the supernatural threats lurking around every corner, but Indy picks up on everything. This creates the main tension that drives the whole movie forward. What I appreciate most is how the film handles its atmosphere. Leonberg clearly studied horror classics, especially John Carpenter’s work. You can feel that influence in how he uses darkness and simplicity to build dread. The score features scratchy violins over deep cello notes that make your skin crawl during the most tense moments. When Indy gets chained outside during a rainstorm and stands on his doghouse to watch his owner through an upstairs window, the music and visuals combine to create something genuinely affecting. The cinematography deserves major praise, too. Shooting a film from a dog’s point of view turns ordinary rooms into unnatural and almost provocative spaces. Long tracking shots reveal Indy moving through dark corridors, where hidden dangers lurk, and the camera operates to make even familiar rooms seem foreboding and unfamiliar. There’s a moment where some light merely illuminates half of Indy’s face as he stares into a dark corner, and it captures Indy’s terror succinctly, without dialogue or explanation, which speaks to how Joe situates visual options that enhance the material beyond cleverness. But I won’t pretend the film is full of substance. It is patently thin in places. We see glimpses of the grandfather’s background, some VHS tape displays of sitting through tips on taxidermy, and some tape of old horror films, but don’t gain narrative heft until the final act. It is unequivocally a mood piece, infused with atmosphere above and beyond complexity. There are going to be people out there who find this distasteful. I mean, when you can gain a sense of plot threads, there are times when a narrative beckons to offer progress and never seems to pay off in the end. The movie also relies heavily on darkness, sometimes too much. Several scenes stay so black that you can’t tell if something supernatural is actually there or if it’s just empty space. That ambiguity works sometimes, but gets overused. The runtime has as much of a feeling of being right as it does wrong. It never overstays its welcome at 72 minutes, but you definitely feel it could’ve been a brilliant 40-minute short instead. You can only show Indy looking at dark corners so many times. The middle section drags a little bit, as it continues to hit the same beats. However, the final twenty minutes really stick the landing. Without spoiling anything, the ending packs an emotional punch that makes the journey worthwhile. One thing I need to address directly—yes, the dog survives. I know many people won’t watch animal-centered horror without this confirmation, and I don’t blame them. Indy makes it through alive, though he definitely goes through some scary situations. In the end, it’s his story, and the movie acknowledges this fact by placing him in the midst of supernatural mayhem, while the emotional center of the film is what separates “Good Boy” from being just a technical experiment with some story. This is really about loyalty and love between a pet and their owner. Todd is clearly dying from something, and whether it’s purely medical or supernatural (the movie keeps this beautifully unclear), Indy refuses to abandon him. That devotion becomes the heart of everything. You start wondering how much of what Indy sees is real versus imagined through his stressed-out mind. Is he a reliable narrator? Can dogs even be reliable narrators? The film plays with these questions without giving easy answers. The supporting cast, including horror veteran Larry Fessenden as the grandfather and Shane Jensen as Todd, does solid work despite rarely showing their faces. Arielle Friedman voices the concerned sister, Vera, mostly over phone calls. A neighbor in a hunting suit adds some additional weirdness to the mix. But don’t confuse yourself – this is Indy’s movie all the way. “Good Boy” may not be meant for everyone. If you require clear and easy-to-follow explanations and plot points, this may frustrate you. This film wants you to fill in the gaps and accept the ambiguity. But if you are able to digest it, you will find something truly original here. Leonberg announces himself as a filmmaker to watch, someone who understands how to build atmosphere and create striking images on what’s clearly a limited budget. This movie proves that sometimes the simplest concepts, such as what if the family dog knew the house was haunted? can generate the most interesting results when handled with care and creativity. It’s a small film with big ideas about perspective, loyalty, and how we experience fear. And yeah, it features one very good boy who deserves all the treats.

OUR RATING – A PET’S EYES 7.5