{"id":13202,"date":"2025-10-10T20:39:35","date_gmt":"2025-10-11T00:39:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=13202"},"modified":"2025-11-11T11:54:01","modified_gmt":"2025-11-11T16:54:01","slug":"good-boy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2025\/10\/10\/good-boy\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Boy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Good Boy<\/strong> (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 IFC\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 73 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (terror, bloody images and strong language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Ben Leonberg\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Alex Cannon and Ben Leonberg\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Sam Boase-Miller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Wade Grebnoel\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 3, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Indy, Shane Jensen, Arielle Friedman, Larry Fessenden, Stuart Rudin, Hunter Goetz, Anya Krawcheck, Max, Noah Manzoor.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0What film has been getting the most buzz so far this fall? It\u2019s not the Taylor Swift album release party. It\u2019s not Demon Slayer. It\u2019s not even One Battle After Another. It\u2019s Good Boy<\/strong>, an independent horror movie in which the protagonist is a dog. That\u2019s right, a dog. The action is seen entirely from his perspective. We don\u2019t even get a good look at any of the human characters. It\u2019s different, I\u2019ll give it that. It\u2019s also pretty good.<\/p>\n

\u00a0So here\u2019s the thing about Good Boy<\/strong>. It\u2019s technically a horror film. It has a malevolent entity. It contains moments of terror. It has a couple of effective \u201cBOO!\u201d scenes. HOWEVER, it goes in a different direction. It\u2019s not the usual claptrap. It transcends the genre. It\u2019s scary and unsettling, but what initially looks cliched really isn\u2019t. It isn\u2019t what horror fans will be expecting. Not all of them anyway. I figured it out about midway through and I\u2019m sure a few other cinephiles will too, but a vast majority of moviegoers will likely not see it coming.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019m sure the main question on everybody\u2019s mind concerns the fate of the pooch. I\u2019m going to go ahead and answer that for the benefit of dog lovers everywhere. The dog does NOT die nor is he badly injured even though he comes face to face with a malevolent entity. That\u2019s the only spoiler you\u2019ll get out of me.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The star of Good Boy<\/strong> is Indy, a reddish-brown Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever with the most expressive eyes you\u2019ll ever see. He belongs to the director Ben Leonberg making his feature film debut here. If there was any reason for the Academy to create a new category (Best Canine Performance), this is it! Indy is absolutely incredible as the four-legged protagonist who knows something his owner doesn\u2019t, namely that they\u2019re not alone where they are.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Good Boy<\/strong> operates on the well-known premise that dogs sense things humans cannot. They see things in the darkness and hear things in the silence. Indy immediately knows something\u2019s amiss in the cabin that once belonged to his owner\u2019s late grandfather. They go there after the owner finds out he\u2019s terminally ill with chronic lung disease. It\u2019s a creepy place deep in the woods. Indy often sees visions of another dog and a dark gooey ghoul. His sensitive hearing picks up sounds like creaky doors and sharp thuds. It freaks him out. His owner Todd, whose health and sanity deteriorate rapidly, is completely oblivious to the eerie goings-on.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It would have been easy for Leonberg to let Good Boy<\/strong> devolve into a gimmicky horror film with the dog\u2019s POV, but he allows it to be more than that while keeping the narrative on a short leash. Indy is more than a faithful canine companion; he\u2019s an actual character with feelings and fears. He\u2019s stressed over his human\u2019s increasingly erratic behavior which includes some mild abuse (e.g. being pushed away, being put on a chain outside). Indy\u2019s understanding is limited yet he seems to know what\u2019s going on and will fight to protect his human no matter what.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I believe the word to describe the technical aspects of Good Boy<\/strong>– in particular, the cinematography by Wade Grebnoel and editing by Curtis Roberts- is masterful. The fear is ratcheted up to level 11 in the long tracking shots of Indy walking through the dark, creepy house not knowing what lurks around the bend or in the shadows. Then Leonberg takes it to 12 by having Indy\u2019s owner watch videos of old B&W horror movies. The feeling of dread throughout is palpable.<\/p>\n

\u00a0What Leonberg ultimately does with Good Boy<\/strong> goes beyond making an effective minimalist horror movie. It\u2019s about more than a demonic entity stalking a dog and his human. It\u2019s about loyalty, heart and friendship. A dog will lay down his or her life for their owner. Good Boy<\/strong> perfectly illustrates this fact better than any goofy family movie about a boy and his dog. It\u2019s really something to see.<\/p>\n

P.S. Wanna know what really grinds my gears? A clever, original horror movie like Good Boy<\/strong> gets relegated to a limited release while a piece of s*** like Him plays everywhere. That\u2019s industry mentality for you.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Good Boy (2025)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 IFC\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 73 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG-13 (terror, bloody images and strong language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Ben Leonberg\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Alex Cannon and Ben Leonberg\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Sam Boase-Miller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Wade Grebnoel\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 3, 2025 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Indy, Shane Jensen, Arielle Friedman, Larry Fessenden, Stuart Rudin, Hunter Goetz, Anya Krawcheck, Max, Noah Manzoor. Rating: *** […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13203,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-horror"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Good-Boy-POSTER.jpg?fit=620%2C918&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13202"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13205,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13202\/revisions\/13205"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}