'Good Boy' Review: Haunted House Horror Through the Eyes of a Dog
- Seb Jenkins
- Oct 1
- 3 min read
By Seb Jenkins - October 1, 2025
Ben Leonberg uses his own pet dog, Indy, to serve up one of the most unique horror flicks of the year as The Blair Witch Project meets Marley and Me.
2025 has been a booming year for horror. 28 Years Later threw us back into one of the most iconic British horror franchises of all time. Sinners is seeking to bite and claw its way into the 2026 Oscars argument. Zach Cregger’s Weapons topped the box office for three consecutive weeks. Even The Conjuring: Last Rites earned the biggest-ever global opening for a horror film with a whopping $194 million. Yet, amongst overwhelming success and mindboggling budgets, the independently-produced Good Boy is holding its own in a dog-eat-dog world.
What is the film Good Boy about?
When Todd (Shane Jensen) goes against his sister’s advice and moves into their grandfather’s supposedly haunted and decidedly run-down cabin, it doesn’t take long for the family curse to take hold. As Todd descends further and further into the murky depths of his dark surroundings, it’s up to man’s best friend to keep his owner safe. The premise of Good Boy is simple. It’s your classic haunted house horror with one important twist – we view the series of events through the eyes of Indy the dog. And what a good boy he is!
Independently produced by Ben Leonberg and Kari Fischer via the aptly-named production company ‘What’s Wrong With Your Dog’, Good Boy takes advantage of unique camera angles to shoot scenes from the eye level of our four-legged friend. It’s amazing how you can open up a whole new avenue of storytelling just by flipping the focus. However, it is not just the cinematography that puts us in the paws of Indy the dog. Leonberg makes a very deliberate choice to barely show any human faces throughout the entire 73-minute run-time, squeezing all the emotion of the story – whether it be dismay, desperation, or devotion – from Indy himself.
Instead, Good Boy is more a tale of unwavering canine loyalty, powerlessness, and the corruption of humanity. With Indy unable to directly communicate with his owner, we suffer through the hauntings with the same horror, confusion, and helplessness as the leading dog. This is a theme we saw play out on the big screen just last year, with Steven Soderbergh’s Presence shot entirely through the POV of a mysterious ghost. While Good Boy certainly feels a little limited due to the lack of dialogue to drive the story, it certainly makes up for it via lightning-fast pacing, interesting practical effects, and sheer avant-garde intrigue.
We often take the time in our reviews to pay homage to some of the standout acting performances of the year, and that respect should not be limited to humans alone. Indy the dog is nothing short of a revelation in Good Boy. Without the use of any CGI editing, everything you see on screen was performed by Indy himself. How on Earth you can train your own pet dog to hit his marks, interact with props, and show a vast range of complex emotions, I will never know. Rumour has it, Indy was guilty of booping the camera a lot on set, but we can forgive a good boy for being a little curious.
Is Good Boy Worth Watching?
More than 25 years after The Blair Witch Project, it feels as if the found-footage horror genre has evolved into a new era of interesting POV storytelling, and Good Boy is a worthy innovator. Good Boy refuses to follow the norm and produces a truly unique horror story within such a congested genre - a trailblazing testament of what can be done with a small budget and a fantastic concept.
Good Boy (2025) is releasing in the Philippines on October 1, 2025, in the US and Australia on October 3, 2025, and in the UK and Ireland on October 10, 2025, with other international release dates following in late 2025
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