‘Good Boy’ Review: Oh, the Horror, Through Canine Eyes

Dog owners are often known to be extremely attentive to their pets, showering them with treats and affection and generally considering them one of the family. But filmmaker Ben Leonberg took things a step further. He’s taken his own dog, Indy, and made him the center of a feature-length horror film. The photogenic retriever takes the ball and runs with it (presumably literally as well as figuratively) and proves his star power in Good Boy, receiving its world premiere in the Midnighter section at . It’s the sort of high-concept project that horror filmmakers often resort to to separate themselves from the rest of a very crowded field, such as the found-footage trend pioneered by the likes of The Blair Witch Project and . This effort, shot over three years, doesn’t have quite the same impact, except perhaps for the most ardent fans of canines, and it’s hard to imagine that it will spawn a trend. Any self-respecting cat is bound to turn up his nose at the idea. Related Stories Good Boy The Bottom Line Horror goes to the dogs. Venue: SXSW Film Festival (Midnighter)Cast: Indy, Shane Jensen, Larry Fessenden, Arielle Friedman, Stuart Rudin, Anya Krawcheck, MaxDirector: Ben LeonbergScreenwriters: Alex Cannon, Ben Leonberg 1 hour 13 minutes But Good Boy works well enough on its own terms, managing to sustain sufficient tension throughout the course of its smartly concise 73-minute running time. The story is told entirely through Indy’s perspective, and if you ever find yourself in trouble, he’s the kind of dog you want on your side. He’s certainly needed by the central human character, his owner Todd (Shane Jensen), who in the opening scene is shown in the midst of an unspecified medical crisis. It’s serious enough to make him want to relocate to the run-down, isolated country house once owned by his grandfather, with Indy in tow. After they arrive late at night during a pouring rainstorm (naturally), it immediately becomes apparent that strange things are going on. Apparent to Indy, at least, who spots the silhouette of a mysterious figure standing in back of the car. When Todd tries to coax him out of the car, Indy at first refuses, displaying the sort of common sense that humans in horror films too often lack. It’s only the beginning of things going bump in the night of which only Indy seems to be aware. He sees another dog in the house, or actually the ghost of a dog, which definitely freaks him out. He hears strange noise, sees bizarre apparitions and, at one point, Todd’s grandfather who died in the house years earlier (played by horror film veteran Larry Fessenden, who instantly provides an air of legitimacy to the enterprise). Indy also has the good sense to not enjoy walking in the nearby cemetery containing the graves of his owner’s relatives. “They all died pretty young, too,” Todd points out, failing to recognize that it might not be a good omen for his own fate. (But we do!) Director Leonberg, working from a screenplay co-written with Alex Cannon, is not above resorting to the standard horror fake-outs, as when Indy comes across a fearsome tree creature in the woods who turns out to be merely a hunter in a camouflage outfit. But mostly he plays it straight, even if the bizarre phenomena on display are mostly abstract and devoid of much specificity. Since the story is told entirely through Indy’s necessarily limited viewpoint, the stylistic choice seems reasonable. Although it must be repeated that the pooch is far more intelligent than most human characters in horror films, who always seem to make bad choices. What comes across most strongly, and gives the film its emotional power, is Indy’s unfailing loyalty to his beloved owner and his willingness do practically anything to protect him. Even when Todd, succumbing to both his serious illness and the house’s demons, treats him rather shabbily, at one point chaining him to an outside doghouse where Indy proves frighteningly vulnerable to threatening forces. That Good Boy works to the extent that is does is a testament to the expert canine-handling skills of Leonberg and his wife, the film’s producer Kari Fischer, who find ingenious ways to get such a convincingly terrified performance out of their dog that he would have been the instant frontrunner for a PATSY Award if only that recognition for animal performers still existed.  

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