“Good Boy” is the most beautifully tragic horror movie I have ever seen. Audiences must watch the movie themselves to get the full scope of how great this film truly is.
Releasing Oct. 3 “Good Boy” breaks the typical horror movie human Point of view and replaces it by focusing on a dog. While some may think this idea is odd, it works so well. The camera work is done primarily at the height of the dog, showing the attention to detail Director Ben Leonberg puts into his first full length film.
The main character Indy was played by one dog without CGI, the film does a fantastic job in portraying him as a genuinely terrified creature with a complex range of emotions. While Indy had no formal training his real life owners Leonberg and Kari Fisher were able to get a great performance out of him, during the more terrifying scenes you can feel the absolute fear coming off of him. The amount of challenges that the creators must have gone through to bring this film to life, and to still deliver this great product is utterly shocking.
Another stand out performance comes from Shane Jensen who played Todd, Indy’s owner. Most of his backstory is drip fed to the audience throughout the film, not much is given but it’s enough to infer why the events of “Good Boy” are happening. Seeing the love that Todd and Indy have for one another, makes it all the more harder for viewers to see Todd slowly change into a shell of his former self, while Indy desperately tries to help.
This movie is an incredibly sad movie to watch, so if viewers are sensitive to that they might want to grab a box of tissues. Aside from that this is still a horror movie, the scares were amplified by the sound design, making audiences uneasy leading into the scares. This worked well for the most part, but it is safe to say that Leonberg should try to improve on this if he ever does another horror film. As some of the creepier scenes rely on jump scares and sound design over frights with a solid structure.
Overall this film was amazing, I’ve watched several films this year and cannot think of a single one that was as good as this one. Everything that it does compounds to make a work of art that needs to be experienced to truly understand.
