Good Boy

Good Boy is a 2025 independent horror film about a dog trying to save his owner from a supernatural presence in his owner’s haunted house. The movie is told and shot through the eyes of the dog, Indy. Good Boy is an independent film, and it only has a run-time of 73 minutes. It isn’t a big budget production. In fact, the budget on the movie was only $70,000. Despite that, the film won numerous awards and grossed well over $8 million when it was released in theaters and on streaming services, making it a huge financial success.  

I didn’t really know what to expect when I started watching this movie. I kept expecting something to happen to the dog. But then I was like “why would anything happen to the dog? That’s not cool.” But nothing does end up happening to Indy, which is a good thing. Because Indy is a pretty awesome dog. There’s some parts where you think something’s about to happen. But it’s a horror movie. It wouldn’t be a horror movie if there weren’t moments of suspense. 

Overall, the best thing I can say about Good Boy is that it’s creative, imaginative, and an interesting concept for a movie. It’s not easy working with animals, because you can’t direct animals. They just kind of do what they want. So, you have to kind of guide them, and film them, and then hope that you get the shots that you want. Which is what this guy did apparently. There were over 400 days of shooting to get all of the shots for this movie. And they lived in the house while they did it. They used dog toys and other tricks to get Indy to move in certain ways and film him from different angles to get the shots that they wanted and then edit what they wanted.  

Directorially, I think it’s well done, as far as horror movies go. It has a nice creepy tone to it. There are things that kind of pop out at you here and there to give you sudden knee-jerk reactions like horror movies like to do. And there are a few scenes where something is actually happening to not make the movie a total suspense. Aside from that, it isn’t really anything to write home about as far as movies go. It’s your usual haunted house story, just, with a dog.  

The one thing I will say is that I was kind of confused through most of the movie. Things happen that aren’t so much scary as they are, weird. Things don’t really get explained well. And I guess, when you’re looking at things through the eyes of a dog, that’s going to happen. Because dogs don’t really have the analytical tools to understand things as well as people do. But I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what was going on, as opposed to being scared, or worried about Indy. And I love dogs. So, I was kind of always worried about Indy. 

So, yeah. Go and see Good Boy. It’s interesting, if nothing else. You’ll probably never see another movie from a dog’s perspective that’s as good. And if you do, tell me. Because maybe there’s a new genre of movie that’s starting, and I want to know about it. And as always, keep on watching, with a smile on your face…