The Reel Review
A man with chronic lung disease moves with his dog Indy into his dead grandfather’s spooky old house in the woods, where Indy becomes aware of a sinister, supernatural presence that apparently only he can see, and which seems intent on taking his human, in this supernatural horror/thriller.
From a production standpoint, Good Boy is an impressively solid looking film given its shoestring budget. It has an interesting dog point-of-view premise, a super cute dog, a creepy setting and an effectively chilling score. The gimmick quickly grows tired, however, due to a weak story that is really boring and frankly, doesn’t make much sense. Indy roams the house as his owner, when not coughing up blood, watches old horror movies and VHS tapes of his now dead grandfather that were made inside the house. Although it tries, all the jump scares in the world can’t make this CGI supernatural creature even remotely scary.
Even with only an hour-and-12-minute runtime, the largely dialogue-free film’s inconsistent pacing, repetitiveness and gaping plot holes make it feel much longer, less like a coherent story, and more a tedious Skinamarink-like loop of the concerned, loyal dog searching the house, as the film limps to its predictable, sad ending. Good Boy is a cool concept that misses the boat on its execution.
REEL FACTS
• Good Boy’s husband and wife filmmaking duo, co-writer/director Ben Leonberg and producer Kari Fischer, say it took more than three years to complete the film. Indy is their dog.
• Good Boy was filmed in Harding Township, New Jersey on a $70,000 budget and has made $8.8 million at the box office.
• Indy, a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, was recently nominated for an Astra Award for Best Performance in a Horror or Thriller.
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