Horror’s full of old houses and loyal dogs, but it’s not often you get both in the same breath — and rarer still that it works. Good Boy, the eerie debut from Ben Leonberg, manages to pull it off with a surprising amount of heart. This isn’t your standard ghost story, and it’s not just another shaggy dog tale either. What we’ve got here is something more grounded: a story about fear and devotion, seen not through the eyes of the man who’s come to escape the world, but through the dog who stays by his side when things start to go wrong. It’s a bold move — telling a haunted house film from a canine point of view — but it’s one that lends the whole thing a kind of off-kilter sincerity.
When Todd (Shane Jensen) inherits his late grandfather’s ramshackle family home, he sees it as a chance to retreat from the world. But as his health falters and ominous rumours of the house’s haunted past creep in, it’s left to his loyal dog Indy — sharp-eared and keen-nosed to confront the shadowy presence lurking within.
Good Boy doesn’t just mash genres together — it finds something oddly tender in the middle of all the gloom. By rooting the story in Indy’s perspective, Leonberg avoids gimmickry and gets at something startingly sincere: a tale about fear, loyalty, and the things we can’t explain but still stand by. Much of that comes down to Indy himself, the director’s own dog, who gives a performance brimming with loyalty, fear, and quiet heroism which only heightens the tension when the house begins to stir.
Sound design does much of the heavy lifting, with every creak, groan, and spectral whisper gnawing at the nerves, while the taut 73-minute runtime keeps things brisk. Less successful is the human element: Todd and the supporting cast are sketched so lightly that when tragedy strikes, the emotional weight is left squarely on the dog’s shoulders. And while the central ghoul is memorably dark and revolting as they come — oozing menace in every frame — it’s frustratingly underused.
Still, for all its genre trappings, this is a film that finds fresh ground in familiar soil, thanks to the simple, affecting choice to filter horror through the eyes of man’s best friend.
A creepy tale with real bite, powered by an astonishingly emotive canine performance, Good Boy earns a treat. But compared to this year’s other alternative-POV haunted house movie Presence, it’s missing that vital human heartbeat.
VERDICT:
Good Boy opens in theaters on October 3rd, 2025.
