Studio:   IFC/Shudder
Director: Ben Leonberg
Writer:   Alex Cannon, Ben Leonberg
Producer: Kari Fischer, Ben Leonberg
Stars:    Indy, Shane Jensen, Arielle Friedman, Larry Fessenden, Stuart Rudin, Hunter Goetz, Anya Krawcheck

Review Score:

Summary:

A devoted dog becomes concerned for his ill owner after they move to a remote family home haunted by a supernatural entity.

Synopsis:

Following a worrisome medical episode that deeply concerns his sister Vera, Todd moves out of his New York apartment with his loyal dog Indy and into a remote woodland home that has been in his family for generations. Over the phone, Vera reminds Todd that the house is supposedly haunted, as it is where their grandfather died when he was living there with his dog Bandit while similarly suffering from a debilitating illness. As various instances of supernatural activity begin, Indy starts sensing a dark presence stalking Todd.

While walking his dog in the woods, Todd encounters Richard, a longtime family friend who was neighbors with Todd’s grandpa. In addition to warning Todd about traps he set for fox hunting, Richard mentions how he was the person who found Todd’s grandfather’s dead body, but no one ever found his dog Bandit.

Over another phone call, Vera asks Todd if he’s noticed anything weird with Indy, such as staring at nothing or searching for something he can’t see. Although he is growing sicker, Todd dismisses Vera’s inquiry, even after she suggests maybe Indy can detect something wrong with Todd that doctors can’t diagnose.

Left home alone while Todd visits his doctor, Indy sees the ghost of Grandpa’s dead dog Bandit, who wears a red bandana. By following the other dog and trying to retrieve the bandana from under a piece of furniture, Indy experiences a haunting vision of the shadowy figure. Indy sees the entity again in a dream, from which he is awoken by the sound of Todd repeatedly slamming his head against the cellar door while seemingly sleepwalking.

While a frustrated Todd deals with another phone call from his sister, Indy sees a vision of Todd’s grandfather coughing up blood while Bandit observes with concern. Grandpa seemingly sees the dark figure approaching as the ectoplasm-dripping entity transfers from the flashback to appear behind Indy.

Todd finds Indy covered in filth behind the cellar door. While bathing Indy afterward, Todd violently coughs up blood. Todd’s doctor subsequently informs Todd that his illness is unfortunately too far advanced to be treated.

Sensing the presence back at home, Todd and Indy hide together beneath a bed. Indy feels the entity’s gnarled hand on his head, causing him to bite Todd. Todd collapses in an adjacent room, but a supernaturally closed door prevents Indy from tending to him.

Indy jumps through a second-floor window to escape outside. Indy races through the forest to seek help at Richard’s house, but he becomes ensnared in one of Richard’s fox traps. Now behaving coldly and scolding the dog for disobedience, Todd collects Indy and chains him to a doghouse outside the home.

As Todd begins succumbing to his illness, the entity attacks Indy outside. Concerned for Todd, Indy escapes the entity’s grasp by flipping the doghouse and breaking his chain. To get back inside the house, Indy ventures through the storm cellar, where he passes Bandit’s skeleton still wearing his red bandana.

Indy reunites with Todd upstairs. However, when Todd pets Indy, Todd discovers he is disembodied, and his bleeding corpse is lying on his bed with empty pill bottles dropped on the floor. The entity wraps a chain around Todd’s throat and pulls him into the cellar.

Indy breaks through a window to get outside. Indy goes through the storm cellar again and follows Todd’s screams into a dark hole in a stone wall. Indy pulls Todd out of the hole. The entity starts stalking toward Todd and Indy before suddenly disappearing.

Todd tells Indy, “You’re a good dog, but you can’t save me. You gotta stay here.” Todd then melts into a skeleton that vanishes back inside the hole. The next morning, a tearful Vera finds Indy still standing vigil in the cellar.

Review:

The concept behind “Good Boy” sounds like a gimmick, and it is, although there’s a sentimental sincerity motivating the movie that makes it more than a cheap trick for grabbing attention. “Good Boy” tells a ghost story where a terminally ill man, Todd, retreats to a remote woodland home that has a family history of being haunted. The difference between this and every like-minded tale of escalating paranormal activity plaguing a person living alone in a forest is that this movie takes place entirely from the perspective of Todd’s loyal dog Indy.

A method that director Ben Leonberg uses to focus squarely on Indy involves keeping the camera low and keeping the human actors, of which there are only five, unseen or in silhouette. During the last act, the audience finally gets direct looks at Todd’s bearded face. Until then, Todd, as well as his sister, neighbor, and the doctor he briefly interacts with, are nothing more than torsos, legs, and voices that often fade into mumbles.

This technique helps give “Good Boy” its distinctly dog-centric style, though it comes with a caveat. Since we never see anyone’s mouth move, limited dialogue appears to have been recorded separately. Almost entirely devoid of ambient noise, the cast’s cleanly recited lines sound overly rehearsed as a result. Instead of acting “with” the dog, they’re likely reading into a microphone directly from a printed script, and that air of artificialness bites into the movie’s capacity to present itself as immersive fantasy rather than a filmed play. Instances of people speaking are infrequent, and often inconsequential, so even though their intrusions are noticeable, it’s still easy for Indy’s innocent appeal to bring viewers back into the slowly unfolding horror of an evil entity stalking Todd and his furry companion.

Not only is “Good Boy” a true indie film by virtue of being modestly made mostly in a single location with never more than two humans onscreen at once, it’s also a movie that could only exist in the digital age of 21st-century cinema. A bold producer might have been able to make the movie in the ‘70s or ‘80s when animal-centric horror hit its peak. But rolling expensive film through a loud, cumbersome camera seems like an economically unsustainable way to burn cash while waiting for an untrained dog to stop being distracted long enough to do what you want.

After an opening montage of home movies featuring Indy playing as a puppy, even viewers who aren’t inherently animal lovers should see his character as a lovable, compassionate creature. The rest of the movie does a remarkable job of continuing to paint Indy as a genuine personality whose visible concern for his ailing owner becomes emotionally endearing. If nothing else, “Good Boy” is a terrific achievement in editing for its ability to carefully maneuver around footage that undoubtedly included many minutes of Indy wandering away, losing interest in his commands, and looking directly into the lens. At times, Indy morphs into a reality-show participant who somehow stops seeing the camera to seemingly act naturally, as if he’s just going about his business without a care for any crewmembers who might be observing just out of frame.

There are a couple of moments of minor trauma for the dog, like a frustrated Todd roughly wrestling him away when he doesn’t want to be bothered, and a hand dragging Indy under a bed. Neither of these are necessarily examples of abuse, though someone might wonder whether it’s worth temporarily manhandling a baffled animal for the sake of snatching five seconds of footage. Otherwise, editing operates in tandem with visual FX so that when Indy jumps out a window or gets snared in a fox trap, you can see where the cuts are to give the illusion of Indy experiencing distress without him being in any real danger.

As adorable as Indy can be, being a dog hamstrings how far he can carry a feature-length film as its nonverbal hero. No matter how “good” an animal’s acting is, they’re inhibited by a naturally narrow range. In Indy’s case, his performance primarily consists of staring with an expression that can alternately be read as confused or worried depending on which scene the reaction shot is used for. Indy’s stunts are CGI-enhanced, meaning that for most of the movie, he doesn’t really have a whole lot to do apart from moving his head and trotting toward noises.

“Good Boy” is highly unlikely to see a sequel or any imitators because, even at only 73 minutes, this is about as far as the premise can be reasonably stretched before running its course. First to the punch, “Good Boy” rises above its gimmick label by having an open-to-interpretation ending that adds thematic heft to what could otherwise be a one-and-done stunt. The movie might not be relevant in years to come, but it should be remembered for trying something out of the ordinary, and for forming its frame around enough substance to prevent the film from merely being a trite exercise in cute canine creeps.

Review Score: 65