Good Boy Review

 

A dog and his owner move into the owner’s grandpa’s cabin in the woods, and the dog starts sensing that a ghost might be in the house… and it’s after him.

The whole film is told from the dog’s (Indy) point of view, and Indy gives some pretty good “reaction acting” for a golden retriever. Granted, his cuteness helps, but the director must’ve worked really hard to get perfect shots with the dog, so props for his hard work and dedication.

The owner and his sister may not be shown, but you do hear them throughout, and I think they both give very natural and down-to-earth performances that feel very real.

The movie makes the creative decision to not show the owner’s face at first, or any human face for that matter. I’m assuming it’s so the audience can see everything from the dog’s point of view, but since the catalyst for this movie is the love between this dog and its owner, it’s harder to connect as an audience member to their relationship since it’s kind of shown as one-sided, but it does add a strange and different tone than other films, so I get why they do it creatively, so it does have advantages and disadvantages.

For such a small-budgeted film, they make good use of their location and have some impressive and creative cinematography.

The film’s tone has a “slow impending dread buildup” feel, and it is shot almost like a home movie mixed with a 1970s horror movie. So throughout the whole film, normal things feel slightly off, and there’s tension throughout that is really effective.

The scares are pretty standard but still effective and well executed.

The filmmaker did a good job at making the woods very creepy and intimidating and getting a lot of horror out of the idea of “being home alone” and the fears that come along with that.

I like how they slowly build up the mystery of what’s going on in this cabin, because throughout most of the film, you’re not sure exactly what is going on and what spirit could be out there, so it adds a fun anticipation for the audience in trying to figure out what could be after them.

I like the design of the supernatural entity in this film. I won’t spoil it, but I will say… He is so slimy looking, lol.

There’s a reoccurring motif of the characters watching spooky old horror movies on VHS, which I thought was a nice touch.

I wasn’t a big fan of the ending; it felt anticlimactic and a little too sad for my taste, but I can see other people getting something out of it, maybe.

After the credits, they showed some behind-the-scenes of how they filmed it, and it took them like three years to make it with only three people, so that was a fun extra seeing the work put into the film.

For a small film with a unique premise, there was a lot of creativity and thought put in throughout; it may not always live up to it, but I think if you like dogs or are a dog owner, I think you’d have fun with this. I give “Good Boy” three stars ⭐️⭐️⭐️.