Good Boy review – tails of the unexpected in a ghostly shaggy-dog story

Are subjective horror movies having a moment? It all depends on your point of view. Last summer the Canadian thriller In a Violent Nature differentiated itself from the usual slasher shlock by telling its story entirely from the perspective of its lethal antagonist. In traditional Friday the 13th style, a group of innocent but slightly annoying college kids were stalked in the woods by a mute hulk. But the camera never left the killer, hovering behind his wheezing frame as he stomped relentlessly towards his panicky victims. 

Earlier this year the prolific director Steven Soderbergh belatedly dipped his toe into horror with suburban ghost story Presence. This time the camera became the point-of-view of a lingering spirit, floating through a family home to observe, and occasionally mess with, the occupants. Making the audience feel like they were a roving wraith – a wraith rover? – put an immersive new spin on familiar spooky material. 

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Which brings us to Good Boy, another wannabe scary movie with an atypical take on perspective. It involves supernatural happenings at a creepy cabin in the woods complete with adjacent graveyard. So far, so rote, you may think. The twist is that the lead actor has four legs, a wet nose and a waggly tail. Indy is a scrappy but soulful little retriever with such heightened senses that he can detect the presence of ghosts while his ailing owner Todd (Shane Jensen) remains oblivious.

Filming a horror from the knee-level perspective of a dog is a good gimmick, and anyone who has looked on in mild exasperation as their pup freaks out at seemingly nothing may feel a twinge of recognition. But constantly barking dogs are also rather annoying. It helps immensely that Indy – who, rightly, gets top billing in the credits – is a remarkably self-composed, mostly silent actor with an impressive repertoire of
meaningful looks that range from upsettingly fearful to doggedly determined. 

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Poor Todd is dealing with some serious medical issues. To get away from it all he has retreated to a cabin that has been in his family for six generations, although no-one seems able to stay there for more than six weeks. To Todd it is just a rural bolthole that has fallen into neglect. (“Glad I don’t have your nose,” he tells Indy as they clear out the stinky basement.)

But for his watchful pooch it is a place where malevolent phantoms simmer in the shadows, seemingly readying themselves to snuff out his already rather diminished owner.

Director and co-writer Ben Leonberg (who, along with Good Boy producer Kari Fischer, is also Indy’s actual owner) has pointed to the opening scenes of 1980s chiller Poltergeist – where Tobe Hooper’s camera shadows a family dog as he silently pads around a sprawling home to check in on his various humans – as a key influence.

In fact he explicitly tips his hat to Poltergeist by reusing one of its recurring visual motifs: a TV tuned to static, sporadically filling Todd’s darkened cabin with flickering light and hissing white noise.

Made on a clearly thrifty budget, Good Boy will never achieve the mainstream success of its Spielberg-produced inspiration. But it does successfully create its own unsettling mood of claustrophobic horror. In the early running, I was perhaps too focused on imagining how Leonberg was eliciting such a convincing performance from his star. Compared to my (admittedly hazy) memories of old Lassie movies or the Incredible Journey franchise where the animal leads seemed either stiff or oblivious, Indy felt completely dialled in to whatever was happening. Were Bonio dog treats being strategically waved off camera? 

But after about 10 minutes I was fully immersed in the story and genuinely fearful for poor Indy, who really gets put through the emotional wringer. While he was not eligible for the Palm Dog – the canine acting honour dished out annually at Cannes – it feels appropriate that when Good Boy debuted at the SXSW film festival in Texas earlier this year the judging panel created a new “Howl of Fame” award to recognise Indy’s masterful performance. He’s a very good boy indeed.

Good Boy is in cinemas from 10 October.

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