Good Boy

A man suffering from terminal cancer moves into an isolated family home with a dark history that has left malignant supernatural forces lurking in the shadows. As the sinister entities threaten him, his brave and faithful dog comes to the rescue.

Much like with babies and small children in movies and television, I’m always a little concerned whenever animals “actors” appear in films and tv shows, as there’s a good chance that they might not understand the context of what’s going on in the film, or what they’re being asked to do. I mention this because the star of this film, and often the only character on screen, is a dog.

The fact that a dog is the main character makes everything so much more tense, and is something that I am usually a little hesitant to even watch. But I did, and while there are some legitimately scary moments here, it’s not because the dog is being put in any actual danger or anything, or is even being forced to act like it’s being threatened. The film has been very clearly shot in a way that the dog is just reacting to prompts off-camera, and any actual ghosts or monsters or scary stuff are never actually happening at the same time. It’s just Movie Magic and clever editing creating some classic jump scares and a couple of good horror reveals.

In short… the dog is okay.

His name is Indy. And he is a very good boy.

First conceived after re-watching the 1982 version of Poltergeist, in which writer/director Ben Leonberg noticed that it was the family dog who first senses the ghosts, leading him to decide to try to make a haunted house horror film from the perspective of the family dog, Good Boy is his directorial debut. And because of the inherent difficulties that can often come from trying to make a film that stars an animal, Leonberg and his wife, Producer Kari Fischer, cast their own dog, Indy, a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, as the film’s lead. Indy, of course, does not have any formal acting training, but he did win accolades for his performance in a previous short film that the couple submitted for an online short film competition called The Rode Reel. Leonberg said that Indy had this "intense, unblinking stare" and very expressive movements that he thought would make him a good fit.

Is there a special term for nepotism when it’s your pet? Or is the just the same term because your fur-baby is often basically the same as your child, and also, if we’re being honest here, is often much more pleasant in general to be around, not to mention much more deserving of unconditional love?

Anyway, it took them $70,000 and three years to make the film, and for most of the production, only Leonberg, Fischer, and Indy were actually on set. Apparently, a lot of that time was spent on the couple standing off-camera and making bizarre noises in order to try to get the reaction they wanted from Indy, and the result is a pretty good time, and a nice little haunted house movie.

So…

No one has lived in Grandpa’s cabin for more than a few weeks since Grandpa’s death, and everyone knows that the place is haunted, and that’s what killed him. So when Todd, a young man suffering from the late stages of cancer, relocates from New York City to the isolated rural wooded cabin, with only his beloved dog, Indy, for company, his sister, Vera, is worried.

Immediately upon their arrival, Indy senses a presence in the home, something that often manifests as creeping black shadows, or sometimes as a muddy figure.

As the pair roam the damp woods, Indy and Todd encounter Richard, a longtime neighbor. Indy sniffs around as Richard tells Todd that he was the one who found Grandpa’s corpse, and that his grandfather's Golden Retriever, Bandit, has been missing ever since. Richard also loans Todd a generator, as the cabin’s power has a tendency to go out during storms.

Over the next few days, Indy tracks the dark entity in the house, and also suffers through recurring nightmares of being attacked by a dark figure. He encounters old apparitions of Todd’s grandfather, and at one point, the ghost of Bandit too, who leads him upstairs, where Indy finds a bandana that used to belong to Bandit. The cabin is a scary place, it’s various rooms and closets and hallways stacked and piled with Grandpa’s old shit, and all the while Todd is getting sicker, and becomes increasingly aggressive toward Vera whenever she checks in on him over phone, and even at Indy too.

Indy grows increasingly agitated as he finds Todd sleep walking, or moaning fitfully in his sleep. Finally, while Todd sleeps, an on-guard Indy sees a dark figure in the bedroom, only for it to close the bedroom door, separating him from Todd. Desperate, Indy manages to escape the house, and tries to find Richard for help, but he ends up getting caught in one of Richard's fox traps.

The next day, Todd reprimands Indy by leashing him outside and forcing him to sleep in a doghouse. Now stuck outside, Indy knows the dark figure is near, and he can hear Todd’s coughing getting worse inside of the house. The dark figure tries to get ahold of Indy, but he breaks free, tricking the entity into flipping the doghouse, so he can pull his chain loose from its anchor.

Desperate to get inside, Indy finds the home's cellar door open somehow, finding Bandit's skeleton at the bottom of the steps, as he rushes in to try to save Todd from the dark entity…

Good Boy uses its dark ghostly presence mostly as a metaphor for the creeping horror of terminal diseases, and also as an effective way of exploring the feelings of helplessness that come from being sick and/or in the face of a loved one’s death.

It‘s also a scary little haunted house movie at times.

Yes, the fact that the film is all told from the point of view of the dog is a bit of a gimmick, not to mention a convenient way to keep the story’s conflict/problem at arms length, and as a way to avoid a full resolution, but still, it’s a nice little ghost story about isolation, loneliness, and confusion, and the ones we leave behind. And like I said, Indy is a very good boy, so it’s a huge relief to see him safe at the end.

I was really impressed at the obvious concern the filmmakers had for Indy, and how they clearly took pains not put him danger, or even stress him out too much. This makes sense, he’s their dog, after all, but still, much like the rest of the movie, it was cleverly done. I don’t know if the film was so clever in the end that it could be said to be “amazing” or anything, but it was clever enough. It was a fun watch. The story is pretty good, especially when you consider that it was all from the dog’s point of view. So yeah, all around well done.

My only complaint is that, at a couple of points in the film, scenes took place outside of Indy’s perspective, and that felt like a mistake to me. They obviously did this because they felt like they had to impart certain information and couldn’t do it through the dog’s eyes, but still, those moments stood out, and it’s too bad they weren’t able to find a way to avoid having to do this.

In the end, what I think this guy really needed was a couple of cats. Dogs are your noble protectors against man and beast, a loyal companion who will stand by your side, I get that. But cats, on the other hand, are well-versed in the Dark Arts, and the night belongs to them. A couple of cats will fuck up any dark spirit that dares to encroach upon its territory and threaten its humans.