Good Boy review (2025)

November 8, 2025 Jeffrey Lyles Good Boy

Good Boy is for anyone who wondered how a horror thriller would play out with a dog in the lead.

The gimmick with Good Boy is the entire film plays out through the perspective of a protagonist who can’t speak or emote in the traditional sense.

To some degree that doesn’t impact the film too much, but director/co-writer Ben Leonberg and co-writer Alex Cannon needed to fill in the quiet moments with more dialogue — even if it’s completely one-sided.

Todd (Shane Jensen) is dealing with a chronic lung disease and resents having to be constantly monitored by his sister Vera (Arielle Friedman). To have some sense of normalcy, Todd ditches his city apartment and heads off to his grandfather’s creepy cabin in the woods. The cabin is hardly inviting and warm with an ominous air throughout based on its condition and state of disrepair.

Todd’s grandfather (Larry Fessenden) left the cabin and all its decorations, including his taxidermy collection to family members, but no one wanted any parts of it. This makes Todd’s choice of new living conditions very questionable especially since he’s brushing off Vera’s very valid concerns.

Good Boy opens with Vera finding Todd struggling to breathe with blood drooling out of his mouth, so she’s got reasons to be worried. In happier times, Todd and his dog, Indy (played by Leonberg’s actual dog, Indy).

It doesn’t take Indy long to realize that something is terribly off with the cabin. That’s before he starts hearing the faint barks and yelps of another dog.
To answer the question if dogs dream, in Good Boy Indy dreams a lot. Unfortunately for him, most of those dreams are nightmares of some awful things in store for both him and Todd.

Those nightmares start to become reality as Indy notices a figure lurking in the shadows. This feels like Leonberg and Cannon’s way of stating the shadow of death is a constant figure as Todd’s condition is getting worse. That might be too deep in terms of viewing the film as the shadowy, muddy figure also likes to lean into traditional horror villain tropes save an abundance of jump scares.

That’s appreciated since that wouldn’t necessarily play out as well with a canine protagonist, who’s less likely to willingly ignore obvious cues to go the opposite direction compared to a human lead.

As the film is largely told through Indy’s perspective, the script is fairly barebones (pardon the pun) relying on Todd to carry the narrative. It’s not until the final 10 minutes that Todd is fully shown. For most of the film, Leonberg limits the view to Todd’s waist or lap making sure to keep him obscured in wider shots whether in a hoodie or with random objects. That keeps the focus on Indy.

As whatever supernatural force is going on in the house starts to take its influence on Todd, he’s more of an antagonist to Indy, who’s trying to figure out how best to keep his owner safe.

Good Boy’s budget was under a million dollars, but it doesn’t come off particularly cheap. Leonberg understands his limitations and doesn’t try to push them at the expense of making the film look bad. The thrills and unnerving moments are largely accomplished through rainstorms to obscure what’s lurking in the distance and provide its own eerie soundtrack and calculated piercing yellow and red lighting.

At 73 minutes, Good Boy isn’t a marathon, but it does still manage to feel long since so much of the film is Indy observing what’s happening and a lot of building the tension up from Leonberg. A mythical, supernatural force isn’t the most exciting opposition especially since Indy can’t get further insight on what it wants.

Good Boy largely delivers on its horror thriller premise told through the eyes of a dog even if it needed a bit more meat on the narrative bone.