Indy, a mostly brown and white dog, does not play when it comes to his human being, Todd (Shane Jensen). When Todd decides to move to his grandfather’s haunted cabin in the woods, Indy knows it is bad news, and Scott seems to be changing. Will Indy follow his instincts or save himself? Director and cowriter Ben Leonberg and cowriter Alex Cannon commit to their vision in their first film, “Good Boy” (2025), which is told from Indy’s point of view, but the film still suffers from some momentum problems proportionate to how soon it will take for moviegoers to figure out what is going on. Fortunately, there is an adorable dog to watch while you are waiting to get to the end.

Everything is scary when seen through the eyes of a dog, especially if a dog senses their human being is in danger and is in an unfamiliar environment. Even viewers who are not dog lovers will be invested in Indy’s terrifying journey covering strange territory. Indy is a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever with a sensitive face and expressive eyes. Even people who are not into dogs will be sympathetic to that little face. Leonberg’s montage of home videos showing happier days from a pup to the present day is poignant and brilliant backstory. “Good Boy” lays the groundwork for a supernatural mythology of dogs’ ability to witness the past, commune with ghosts, animal and human being, and understand how thin the layer is between life and death. It is a great idea that does not quite get knocked out of the park, especially with the context free image of a needle point illustrating a dog wrestling with an indiscernible black figure but evokes enough information that it does not have to be clear. Indy’s scenes with Bandit (Max), a golden retriever who tries to warn him of what is coming so Indy can avoid his errors, only whet the appetite. More scenes between those dogs would have been great or communicating with other animals.

Since “Good Boy” only shows the human beings from Indy’s perspective, it is often not possible to see them clearly. The saddest part of the story is how Todd begins as an adoring owner and gradually Indy sees Todd’s actions as mean or sinister, but Indy’s unconditional love is undiluted regardless of Todd’s behavior. Hopefully human beings with dogs will derive the right lessons and not rebuke their dogs for behaving like dogs. Even though it is obvious what is happening to Todd, it is still difficult to not hate him slightly for not considering Indy more. He makes a casual remark acknowledging that the place smells and just pats himself on the back for not having Indy’s nose. At that point, he came off as selfish. There needed to be more scenes when he was visibly feeding him. When he finally does, the setting is so aggravating even if understandable because the dog does not understand. 

Todd’s sister, Vera (Arielle Friedman), does not appear very often, but she is the voice of reason. During a phone conversation with her brother, the dialogue is basically a prose dump explanation of the concept underlying “Good Boy,” which felt too early to reveal everything, but is forgivable as Todd’s attitude gets foul, and he starts to isolate. You will also find yourself struggling to not hate Todd for the way that he talks to his sister, which is again a completely normal human response considering the issues that Todd is tackling.

With all due respect to the actors, the lines sounded as if they were recorded later and sounded stiff as if they were reading them, not interacting with each other. They sounded only slightly better than the foreign VIPS from “Squid Game.” Not natural at all. It probably has less to do with the acting quality and the way that the voices are arranged, or it is a stylistic choice to make them sound a little off and add to the atmosphere. Sometimes it worked when Todd’s voice got gruff, and in the final scene.

There is an underutilized found footage aspect to the story because Grandpa (Larry Fessenden, horror icon, did not recognize him) also liked dogs and enjoyed making home videos. The best scene is when Grandpa is inside and turns as if he hears a noise at the exact time that Indy leaves the living room to investigate a noise. Not a criticism, but a note to all horror filmmakers: pull back a skosh on the tube television in the scary house trope. Some people are just old, poor and like to keep the once expensive objects until they break. At least there were no creepy cartoons playing, but that is because a child is not the innocent figure helplessly witnessing terror unfold around them without the tools to intervene effectively, it is a dog. Still the only thing that plays on this tube TV are black and white films, not whatever is airing on television; however, “Good Boy” gets a waiver because the movies are good: the classic “Carnival of Souls” (1962) and “Mutant” (1984?), which I have never seen, but now I want to.

“Good Boy” is billed as a comedy, which seems like a stretch, but maybe it is in the form of the neighbor, Richard (Stuart Rudin), who looks like he could have made the cut in “Pulp Fiction” (1994) if the Gimp was not available. The hilarious part is how unbothered Indy is when he appears, which is the first sign that he is not part of the horror aspect. Richard never dresses like a normal person.

Visually “Good Boy” is better looking than it had to be because dogs have dichromatic vision so red looks brown, orange looks gray and green looks yellow. They mostly see blue and yellow and can see different gradients of them. If the movie was being shown from Indy’s point of view, the color scheme probably should have been adjusted, but again, will sign a waiver because the film is so autumnal. There is one scene while Indy is in the car, he looks back out the rear window and sees a shadowy, menacing figure. It felt like a shout out to the tunnel scene in “28 Days Later” (2002). There is a really cool subliminal editing image of a man/dog scrambling up the stairs, which is a bit inexplicable, but also makes some sort of sense.

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I do not understand why when a human being dies, their dog gets drowned in it with them and must make a choice to escape and live. I wish this part of the mythology made more sense. Is it as simple as refusing to leave his person and starving to death? It felt more than that.