Good Boy (2025)
Directed by Ben Leonberg
Screenplay by Leonberg & Alex Cannon
Starring Indy, Shane Jensen, Arielle Freidman, & Larry Fessenden.

Horror

★★★★ (out of ★★★★★)

Good Boy tells the story of Todd (Shane Jensen) and his faithful dog Indy (director Ben Leonberg’s dog), as Todd is dealing not only with health issues but also potentially something dark and terrifyingly supernatural lurking around him. They eventually head out to a cabin owned by Todd’s grandfather (Larry Fessenden), despite protests from his sister Vera (Arielle Friedman) related to his ever-worsening health. The dark presence grows the longer Todd remains at the cabin, so the goodest boy Indy tries to do everything in his precious power to keep Todd and himself safe.

Good Boy is unique because of how well Indy acts at the direction of his human. Several times throughout the film Indy’s performance makes the audience feel just as much emotion as any human performance could. This aligns perfectly with the entire purpose of Good Boy. Leonberg’s film is at its core about the absolute loyalty of dogs for the human beings who care for them, and offers the horror movie epitome of the lengths dogs will go to protect the humans they love.
Good Boy works to genuinely prove that dogs are humans’ best friend. In one scene, a TV program focused on dog-human history mentions how “dogs protected cave dwellers from unseen dangers and alerted them to the presence of predators.” Part of the terror in the film is Indy’s perspective of something bad happening to Todd that may be coming from inside. Indy sees Todd being overcome by a dark entity. In one scene, Todd and Indy are hiding, then suddenly the dark entity is the one stroking Indy’s fur instead of Todd. Eventually Todd, very much different from his usual behaviour, chains Indy outside to a dog house. Indy’s struggle goes from fighting an external dark force to attempting to keep Todd from succumbing to a dark force that grows in him like the illness rapidly taking him over.

On a funnier level related to dogs determined to protect humans, and a level most people with dogs (or cats) at home can relate to, Todd says he “can‘t poop without a witness” since Indy entered his life. We also see how Grandpa was constantly accompanied by his own loyal pup, Bandit; later, a sad revelation makes clear that Bandit refused to leave Grandpa’s side, no matter the cost. Perhaps the saddest part of Good Boy is the bittersweet moment when Indy faces the realisation he must leave Todd’s side for the first and last time. On a certain level, Leonberg’s film can be read as a metaphorical story about what dogs experience when they must watch their people get sick and die, envisioned as the horror story of a dog grappling with a dark, demonic-like entity plaguing him and his human’s life.

There’s real magic in Good Boy, as Indy draws the viewer into the film’s reality. Any human being with a real heart can’t possibly resist Indy’s sweet, furry face and soulful eyes. Aside from Indy’s charm, Leonberg works hard to tell a powerful story about not only the loyalty of dogs but about a haunted family that can’t outrun its own history. Good Boy is a horror that contains equal amounts of creeps and heart, combined into a profoundly emotional story about, among other things, how dogs shouldn’t only be viewed as pets, essentially as things we own, but rather as companions, as guides, and, like Indy, as protectors who sometimes keep the monsters at our doors at bay, at least for as long as caninely possible.