A haunted house story told from a dog’s POV, “Good Boy” is an innovative, atmospheric horror film that’s as moving as it is terrifying.
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Haunted house movies have been done to death. You know the beats. A lonely man moves into his late relative’s creaky old home, only to find the shadows don’t rest easy. Grief hangs heavy in the air. The past refuses to stay buried. Most of us could write that script in our sleep.
But every so often, a filmmaker finds a way to remind us not to grow complacent; there is always room to innovate and find new ways to surprise and engage audiences.
Good Boy doesn’t reinvent the wheel so much as tilt it at an angle we’ve never quite seen before, forcing us to roll along on four paws instead of two feet.
The conceit is deceptively simple: tell a haunted house story from the perspective of a dog. In lesser hands, it could have been a gimmick. In Ben Leonberg’s, it’s a revelation.
The premise begins in familiar territory: Todd (Shane Jensen), weakened by an unspecified illness, moves into the dilapidated home of his late grandfather. The grandfather, glimpsed only in brief flashes (a delightful cameo by indie horror stalwart Larry Fessenden), lingers over the house like a spectral memory.
The house itself is soaked in perpetual rain, its walls groaning under years of abandonment, the perfect gothic stage.
But Good Boy quickly swerves from tradition by placing us not in Todd’s shoes, but at the paws of Indy, Todd’s loyal Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever.
From the moment Indy trots into the frame, the world belongs to him.
Leonberg and cinematographer Wade Grebnoel keep the camera locked low, at Indy’s eye level, making humans appear blurred or cut off at the frame’s edge. Shadows loom taller. Doorways stretch into looming thresholds. The house itself seems massive, overwhelming.
The idea that pets can sense things humans can’t becomes both an emotional lynchpin and a full-blown horror engine.
Indy hears something moving when the house is quiet. He stares into corners where nothing seems to stand. He growls at empty spaces until we start to wonder whether they’re truly empty at all. By transposing haunted house tropes into Indy’s perspective, the film injects new dread into old beats.
It’s no exaggeration to say Indy delivers one of the best animal performances in years… hell, one of the best performances period.
His gaze alone carries enough weight to keep the audience on edge. Leonberg and his wife/producer Kari Fischer spent three years carefully training him, and that devotion radiates from every frame. Indy isn’t “acting cute”; he’s acting terrified, confused, protective, loyal.
Cinematographer Wade Grebnoel leans into the canine POV with finesse.
Human characters often blur or loom outside the frame, heightening the feeling that our world has been cut off at the knees. The choice makes Todd feel as distant and fragile to us as he must to Indy, especially as Todd’s illness worsens.
Horror often relies on isolation, inevitability, and grief. Here, those elements are amplified through the primal loyalty of a dog. We don’t just fear the shadows because they might swallow Todd; we fear them because Indy will throw himself against them no matter the cost.
Yes, Good Boy is scary. The sound design is unnerving, the shadows malevolent, the atmosphere drenched in endless autumn rain. But the horror works because it’s anchored in something achingly emotional: the bond between Indy and Todd.
Is Good Boy gimmicky? Maybe. But it’s also brilliant, terrifying, and unexpectedly moving. Leonberg has crafted something rare: a horror film that feels both unconventional and timeless, anchored by a performance from a dog that outshines most human actors.
The reality is, if Good Boy works (it does), it’s because of Indy.
This canine actor doesn’t just work, he soars. Leonberg spent three years training his own dog alongside his producer wife, Kari Fischer, and that patience pays off in what might be the most astonishing animal performance in modern horror. Indy isn’t merely hitting marks; he’s emoting.
There’s a sequence where Indy waits by a window for Todd’s return. The camera pulls slowly back, shrinking Indy into the glass until he becomes small, almost lost. Hours pass, shadows shift, the world changes outside. But Indy doesn’t move. The devotion in that image is crushing. You feel the weight of time, the helplessness of waiting, the eternal patience of unconditional love.
It’s a moment of pure cinema that would flatten if attempted with CGI.
And that’s part of Good Boy’s brilliance: Leonberg refuses shortcuts. No digital trickery, no puppets. Just a real dog, fully present in every frame, anchoring the film’s emotion with his gaze. It’s a film that will leave dog lovers wrung out, hearts pounding, and stomachs twisted into knots. It manipulates shamelessly, and it earns every emotional beat.
This isn’t just a haunted house story. It’s a love story—about loyalty, loss, and the lengths we’ll go to protect the ones we love.
And when Indy stares into the dark, ready to fight for his human one last time, you’ll believe, just for a moment, that love really can save us from the shadows. Good boy, indeed.
Overall Rating (Out of 5 Butterflies): 4.5
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