‘You’re a good dog. No. Boy, you can’t save me. You gotta stay here...’
We are in such an inventive and profitable era of horror cinema right now that seemingly any old concept is getting the big screen treatment. A slasher film from the killer’s point of view? Sure. An ominous fever dream with no conventional characters or recognisable actors? Why not? And so, that brings us here, to Good Boy, a supernatural horror film told entirely from the point of view of a dog…
When Todd (Shane Jensen) moves into the house of a relative who committed suicide, he stubbornly ignores all the supernatural warning signs and begins to slip into insanity himself. We see all this from the point of view of Indy, an absolutely enchanting Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever and Todd’s loyal companion. Indie horror legend Larry Fessenden appears in flashback as Todd’s ailing, unnamed grandfather.
Writer-director Ben Leonberg got the idea for Good Boy after rewatching Poltergeist and noticing the horror trope of animals having some kind of sixth sense when it comes to paranormal activity. Shot in DIY style over three years on a shoestring budget, Good Boy went on to gross a whopping $8.7 million from a meagre $70,000 budget. Another incredible win for the horror community.
As the dog at the heart of the film (called Indy both on and off screen) was untrained, much of the plot was improvised based on the dog’s unpredictable reactions. As a result of this, the narrative, such as it is, never really amounts to anything until the very final moments, and so, the conclusion, which should make a considerable emotional impact, doesn’t land as much as it should. That being said, this is not a film you go into for plot, narrative or even character development. No, you go into Good Boy for the dog. And this dog really is sensational. Indy has such an expressive face, such a likeable demeanour, that it’s impossible not to get caught up in it all. Sure, the scares are fairly routine and predictable and much of it is incoherent, but the dog is so compelling that it doesn’t matter (it also helps that at a skinny 73 minutes, the film never outstays its welcome).
Good Boy feels more like a proof-of-concept, labour-of-love than a fully realised feature film but as an interesting curio, and as a demonstration of what can be achieved with just a dog and a video camera, Ben Leonberg’s experimental film must go down as a modest success.
