This excellent debut feature from Ben Leonberg may be unique among horror films in fairly attracting the compound adjectives “deeply unsettling” and “utterly adorable”.
The first acknowledges an impressive ghost world that works threats of mortal illness in with stringy beings that ooze up from the underworld to smear us with foul-smelling tar. The latter derives from Leonberg’s decision to tell his story from the perspective of a dog.
What a dog this Indy is. You need a mutt with a slightly worried expression – no bouncing Jack Russell will do – and, with downturned brown eyes and occasionally hunched posture, the Nova Scotia duck-tolling retriever meets the bill perfectly.
Leonberg is cunning in his directorial choices. We are not exactly sharing Indy’s point of view, but the camera remains at his level as he scurries around trying to make sense of obscure threats. The director never lets us see the human characters’ faces, so prohibiting any unwanted identification. It is a clever conceit that, as such self-imposed restrictions often do, forces the film-makers to be endlessly creative.
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This is essentially a haunted-house story. After a cute intro that shows us footage of Indy – Leonberg’s own dog in real life – being raised as best friend to Todd (Shane Jensen), we take ourselves to a grim pile in the uninviting countryside. Something is up with the human lead. We are never quite sure what, but it doesn’t look as if the trip is going to him any good. The house, which belonged to his late grandfather, seems to throb with malign energies. Or so Indy suspects.
Anyone who has been friendly with a dog will know that, with justification or not, they detect threats while humans remain blithely unworried. Leonberg makes a few references to unsettling odours by way of indicating that not everything Indy discerns comes from what he sees.
Like too many horror films, Good Boy loses its way in the final chaos. But the growing sense of dread, enhanced by shadowy camera work and clattering sound design, is not easy to laugh off. Those who are understandably unnerved about such things can be reassured that no spirit does anything too wretched to the plucky canine star. A very good boy indeed.
