Movies & TV Good Boy Good Boy: Great Horror, Even Better Dog An excellent, heartwrenching new horror film rises above its gimmick. By Leah Schnelbach | Published on October 3, 2025 Courtesy of Ben Leonberg. An Independent Film Company and Shudder Release. Comment 0 Share New Share Courtesy of Ben Leonberg. An Independent Film Company and Shudder Release. On one level, making a haunted house movie from the point of view of the dog is an idea that makes so much sense you’re astonished it hasn’t been done. At the same time, this movie took three years to make, because trying to get a dog to act like it’s seeing ghosts is hard work. And then, of course, you run into the inevitable snag: Is this just a silly gimmick? The only way I can review Good Boy is to say, first of all: I think it works extremely well as a film. Secondly: yes I know the question you want an answer to. In the interest of serving as many movie reviewing needs as possible, I’m going to treat this review as a matryoshka doll of different levels of spoilers. Never fear, I’ll mark them out as we go, starting with the obvious one and going from there. For those who want to walk into this movie completely cold, and are OK with not knowing the Good Boy’s fate: Good Boy is a very good movie. While there are scares here, this is also a truly emotionally affecting film that has stuck with me since I saw it six weeks ago. The human actors—Shane Jensen as Todd, Indy’s person, Arielle Friedman as Todd’s sister Vera, and horror icon Larry Fessenden as their grandfather—are all excellent, but obviously we’re here for Indy the dog, and he is, indeed, a very good boy. Remarkably expressive and sweet, and I think the best dog acting I’ve seen since Messi played Snoop in Anatomy of a Fall. Director Brad Leonberg has crafted a perfect horror script with co-writer with Alex Cannon, seeding homages to earlier films like Poltergeist and The Conjuring, subverting cliché after cliché, and layering in plenty of plausible deniability to keep the audience guessing about the nature of the horror. Leonberg and the film producer, Kari Fischer, are real-life partners, which I mention because they’re also Indy’s parents. It was the two of them who coached him through his performance, molding a film where the dog seems absolutely terrified for most of the runtime, while in actuality Indy had a marvelous time playing in the woods and eating treats while his humans crawled around on the ground with him.   Having said that, this is one of those horror movies that’s more about grief than scares. While it is creepy, and there are a few jump scares and some great atmosphere, there’s more going on here than you might think from the ads and the trailer. I think the marketing has been a little too aggressive—it’s not a traditional haunted house movie, and if you go in expecting to shriek in terror you may be disappointed in that aspect. But it’s still good, and I recommend seeing it in a theater. For those who need to know whether the Good Boy survives: As I capslock-texted my group chat as I stood in the bathroom line: GOOD BOY LIVES. To be clear, there are some harrowing moments for Indy, and some close calls, but he does make it out. So if that’s your dealbreaker you can go to the film knowing that he makes it out of the house in the end and goes on to what will probably be a fantastic life with a person he loves. HOWEVER. Indy does go through a lot of emotional trauma before he gets out. While the dog actor was treated well throughout, his character is often in danger or emotional distress, so tread cautiously if that’s going to ruin the movie for you. For those who need everything spoiled so they can enjoy it: As I said, this isn’t exactly a haunted house film. There are ghosts, but only Indy can see them, because he’s a dog, and they’re not really haunting his person, Todd. The ghosts are just there because there were multiple deaths in the house. The real thing that’s threatening Todd is cancer. The young man moved to his grandfather’s cabin in the woods to try to recover, but when he relapses, Indy—and only Indy—can see the specter of Death as it gets ever closer. Death isn’t a traditional grim reaper figure, however, it’s basically an oozing mud figure. The director and writer spoke at a Q&A about trying to create an image of Death that would make sense to a dog. It’s not a spectral figure, or a skeleton, or a skinny dude in a cloak with a scythe—it’s decomposition itself, the earth reaching up to reclaim you in death. Indy can see it hunting Todd, and he does his best to protect him, and even just typing that is making me tear up. This is such a fun, unique spin on a typical horror “villain”, and Leonberg and crew use it to terrifying effect. And not to spoil the very end, but the film ends with a moment that is so layered with fear and grief that I was ecstatic to see how well the filmmakers pulled it off. And now here’s some pure, spoiler-free film discussion: I saw this film as part of Film at Lincoln Center’s Scary Movies XIII horror festival. It was a sold-out screening with Leonberg, Fischer, and Cannon all in attendance for the Q&A, and I have to say, the audience was dead silent (except for a few “awws” and gasps), focused, and utterly on Indy’s side. It was one of the best theater experiences I’ve had so far this year, so I recommend seeing it in a crowded house if you can. The film’s great strength lies in its complete dedication to Indy’s point of view. The camera angles only show us what he can see, and we only hear conversations he’s in the room for. There are times when extremely important plot stuff is happening—but Indy doesn’t know that, and if he wanders out of the room, he’s the one we follow. In much the same way that a horror audience can see danger that the protagonists miss, we understand a lot more of what’s going on than Indy can, and it creates an astonishing amount of horror movie tension in a unique way. At the same time, the film also commits to the idea that Indy can hear, smell, and sense things that are lost on the limited perception of humans. He can find traces of Todd’s grandfather that Todd is oblivious to. He knows better than to go into certain rooms or parts of the forest, because his nose is telling him to stay the hell away—but Todd doesn’t know that. And where Todd goes, Indy will always, always follow. That’s where we get to what will, I think, make this film an affecting horror that people come back to over the years. Indy loves Todd so palpably that the film becomes legitimately hard to watch, not because of its horror, but because of its open heart. Indy wants to help Todd, and can’t. Todd loves Indy, but he also spends part of the movie in the haze of his illness. Good Boy is a film that commits to both its horror and its terror, and rises above what might have been a gimmick to become a moving story of the love between humans and their dogs.[end-mark] The post <em>Good Boy</em>: Great Horror, Even Better Dog appeared first on Reactor.