A horror film whose clever central conceit of capturing everything from the perspective of a loving and lovable dog as he helps to smooth over a rougher narrative, “Good Boy” is not here to reinvent the genre. Instead, it’s out to capture it from a slightly different angle, exploring what it would be like if spooky supernatural events were almost entirely seen through the adorable eyes of man’s best friend.
That said man is slipping away gives the film a bit more emotional bite. Even as the story gets rather tangled up in itself, this may still resonate with the dog owners who’ve pondered what would happen to their pup if something were to befall them. Apologies to cat lovers, but this is one film that could only work with a canine at its center as felines would likely just leave you to die.
Built around a scruffy dog trying to protect his troubled human from haunting forces that go bump in the night, “Good Boy” is an engaging little experiment that thrives in its technical approach. It’s a textbook example of where less can often be more, as the most effective moments come in just observing a dog roam about a house where every shadow may contain something more sinister and each creak of a floorboard could signal something creeping up on him. That the film’s lead (expressive newcomer Indy, playing himself) is so authentic and fun to watch makes you willing to overlook the way some of the other pieces of the production don’t come together nearly as compellingly as you’d hope for.
This all begins with an unsettling opening scene of us observing Indy as he discovers one night that his owner, Todd (Shane Jensen), is not in a good way and needs serious medical attention. We don’t fully understand what is wrong with him, with most of the information being limited to what Indy himself would know, though we’ll soon get glimpses into the life that lead him up to this point. A recovering addict whose sister, Vera (Arielle Friedman), is concerned about him relapsing, he’ll soon up and move to his remote rural family home.
This move, something that feels believably rash yet also a little vaguely sketched, is mostly driven by a logistical need to get us to a place where there is no help coming when something begins to haunt Todd and Indy. As we see in a smattering of home videos, their late grandfather (Larry Fessenden) also began to struggle living alone in the house. As the past begins to repeat itself, it’s left to Indy to try to protect Todd from both the forces within the house and also, in the film’s more murky bits, potentially even himself.
Directed by Ben Leonberg from a script he wrote with Alex Cannon, “Good Boy” is not the scariest of films. Instead, it’s more creepy, where the subtle moments of candles going out as something approaches grab you far more than the louder grasps for scares and excitement that work about half the time. Though it gets plenty of points for creativity in how it utilizes Indy, who is actually Leonberg’s own dog, the way it increasingly falls into repetition grows tiresome.
Recurring nightmares, while interesting in that they’re from the perspective of a dog, often undercut moments of tension or what could be genuine fear at critical turning points. After a few instances of it doing this, things start to feel like we’re blinking in the face of something more abjectly terrifying. There is a darkness to “Good Boy,” but it often feels held at arm’s length, as if Leonberg was concerned about us being too worried about our shared pet. Save for a few moments of potential peril, it ends up playing things surprisingly safe and down the middle.
This is a bit of a shame as, for some stretches early on, the film that oddly kept coming to mind was the shattering, upcoming “If I Had Legs I’d Kick You.” This is not because either is similar in story or ambition. Rather, it was because there was initially a similarly refreshing restraint in how Leonberg hardly ever shows the faces of the human characters and takes his time in teasing out the terror, making what is withheld feel more disquieting than anything we do see. The dread comes from the uncertainty and the sense that disaster is waiting just out of frame.
“Good Boy” is still nowhere near as interesting the longer it goes on, but there remain enough inventively staged and shot sequences to make it worth taking in. Even as it increasingly stumbles and goes in circles as it nears the end, with one visual effects shot that would have been better left offscreen nearly taking you out of the whole thing, there are just enough strengths to hold it together. Namely, Indy is a delight who can do no wrong. Though the film around him is not always as assured, he is a star who has earned all the pets and treats a dog could dream of. After all the nightmares he had to endure this film, he more than deserves it.
“Good Boy” opens in theaters on Oct. 3.
