Good Boy (2025)

I watched Good Boy this weekend on Prime Video. It's an indie horror film that I had heard about due to it receiving a bit of buzz (and some festival awards). The directorial debut of Ben Leonberg, it stars his dog, Indy, a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever. The high concept here: a horror movie told from the dog's point of view.

In the film, Indy's owner is Todd, a young man suffering from some sort of life-threatening, progressive lung condition. After a recent hospitalization, Todd gives up his apartment in New York and heads for his grandfather's house in a rural area, a house that has been abandoned since his grandfather's death and his sister says is cursed. 

Indy certainly experiences a sense of foreboding from the moment of their arrival, catching glimpses of a dark figure, moving shadows, and disturbing visions featuring Todd's grandfather's dog, who we learn has been missing since the grandfather's death. As Todd's condition worsens, and he pushes away both Indy and his siter, Indy has nightmares of being attacked by a figure drenched in thick, black mud.

The film is a bit of a slow burn, but it's only 74 minutes in runtime, so doesn't stretch things too much. Indy is an expressive and sympathetic protagonists, unprepared and alone facing the rising menace.

A spoiler, but an important note for dog-lovers: Indy survives.

Now I want to get a bit more spoilery and discuss what I feel is an interesting aspect of the film. I don't think reading about this would diminish the enjoyment of it, but you have been warned...

When I first heard about this move, I assumed it was a horror film told from the perspective of the dog. And there's certainly an argument for that. Having seen it, though, I interpret it more as a film of a dog's horror. That is, it is a situation that would not necessarily be horrific (though likely traumatic) to a human but is horror from a dog's perspective. 

I think the apparent horrors we see depicted are mostly in Indy's mind. They are his interpretation of his knowledge of his owner's impending death. Supporting this view is the fact that the same sorts of phenomena Indy experiences in the supposedly cursed home, we already see hints of in the New York apartment. Indy senses the approach of Todd's death, and he personifies into a tangible thing, something stalking his owner.

You could interpret that film as having no supernatural element at all, but only visually representing the psychological state of its canine protagonist. In fact, statements by Leonberg encourage this reading, not exclusively, but as an interpretation he wanted the film to permit.

My view, based on the events as depicted, is that Indy can in fact see ghosts, but there is no supernatural monster or curse, just death and the fear of the loss associated with it.