{"id":49940,"date":"2025-10-04T15:00:13","date_gmt":"2025-10-04T19:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=49940"},"modified":"2025-10-02T18:15:24","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T22:15:24","slug":"good-boy-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2025\/10\/04\/good-boy-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Boy [2025] [Halloween Horror Month 2025]"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Indy the Dog tries to protect his owner from malicious forces in Ben Leonberg\u2019s impressive but slight Good Boy.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Content Warning for Good Boy: Animal danger and death, Depression, abuse, suicidal tendencies.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Pets can be weird. They can stare into the corner, looking at something we can\u2019t see. Reacting to smells, sights, and sounds outside of our range. Maybe it\u2019s just the noises of the house. Bugs in the walls. Lingering smells from last night\u2019s burgers. Perhaps our cats are just messing with us because it\u2019s fun.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Or maybe it\u2019s something terrible, looking to hurt or kill the humans in the animal\u2019s life. Good Boy fetches the concept; the dog is the line of defense between an oblivious human and the malevolent entity. Indy the Dog, fantastic canine star, knows something is wrong in the secluded cabin his owner has held up in. Despite a premise that sounds like \u201cCourage the Cowardly Dog, but real,\u201d Good Boy is in no way a light, comic film using the \u201cdog as hero\u201d concept, but a serious film using its unique perspective to explore sickness, depression, and death. It\u2019s a small, sad, and scary film. Written by Leonberg with Alex Cannon, it just happens to have a dog as the lead.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It mostly works. Good Boy is a truly scary film. It\u2019s impressive how Leonberg shoots for full effect. Shane Jensen brings a broken intensity in Indy\u2019s terrors as his owner deals with \u2026 something. There\u2019s an uncomfortable atmosphere as we watch Indy try to figure out what\u2019s going on. Not just watching with Indy as the main character, he\u2019s the point of view. Humans are just out of focus, no faces. Human conversations are snippets.\u00a0 We know more than Indy being human and all, but what we see is terrifying. Without showing the film’s tricks, it\u2019s more than a mere spirit. In many ways, the film is about depression and disease. This provides more for the overall plot. But shifting from direct \u201cevil ghost\u201d to \u201cmaybe sickness manifestation\u201d takes a little out of it since it takes action off of Indy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It might be me, wanting a more solid resolution and understanding. Horror stalwart Larry Fessenden is a previous owner of the cabin, and what happens to him and his dog, and how it affects Indy and his owner, is a big question mark. I get it, Indy doesn\u2019t know, so we don\u2019t. I don\u2019t mind a vague terror, but we\u2019re left at a level where we have some information. So it\u2019s a frustrating middle level.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At a mere 73 minutes, I appreciate Leonberg keeping it tight, not overdoing it, and not over-expanding the premise. And indeed, what does work works incredibly well. There is a repetition in many of the scare sequences in the manner of \u201csomething in the background\u2026 oh it\u2019s gone\u2026 oh it\u2019s CLOSER\u201d that is overused. But the atmosphere around the world itself is oppressive and depressive. I was just as sad for Indy as I was scared for him. Indy is a great conduit for an emotional throughfare in the film.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Indy is indeed a good boy. The best boy.\u00a0 It\u2019s a weird thing to say, but Indy the dog gives a truly magnificent performance as the central figure.\u00a0 True, he was specifically trained for this film and is the director\u2019s own dog. But he performs with a naturalness that doesn\u2019t feel like he\u2019s reacting to a treat held just off-screen. It\u2019s an incredible feat. He\u2019s a natural. One reason the film is short is that they worked with him on his schedule, filming for 400 days. There is no whiff of using Indy for show or harm to get a performance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Good Boy is a scary, small film. It doesn\u2019t overuse the concept, but also doesn\u2019t quite reach a comfortable completeness. Indy the Dog is a real animal star and gives a commanding canine performance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Indy the Dog tries to protect his owner from malicious forces in Ben Leonberg\u2019s impressive but slight Good Boy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,12],"tags":[477],"class_list":["post-49940","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-halloween-horror-month","category-movie-reviews","tag-horror"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49940","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49940"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49940\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49953,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49940\/revisions\/49953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49940"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49940"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49940"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}