CANINE horror Good Boy comes with a big drooling dose of ingenuity and a star performance from one very loyal retriever.
Indy, the real dog of the film’s director Ben Leonberg, is our window into a haunted cabin in the woods, as a shadowy angel of death figure keeps this faithful hound on its guard throughout. Now streaming on Shudder, we get a fresh perspective into the creepy goings on in a rundown shack in some Evil Dead-like backwaters where malevolent forces thrive.
The watchful whelp is worried about his owner, Todd (Shane Jensen), a man’s whose face we barely see throughout the entire film. Todd is seriously ill, on his last legs even, and soon retreats from life to his late grandfather’s remote cabin in the boonies. No place for man, nor beast, we are given a look at the heartbreaking and menacing proceedings, in a similar style to that of In A Violent Nature, a gruesome slasher flick seen through the eye of the killer.
This time round, it’s through the eyes of one very sick man’s devoted pooch that we witness the paranormal activity of a malignant lair deep in the woods. Indy focuses long and hard on dark corners where eerie shadows stir banefully all around him, and protects his owner to the best of his ability.
What makes the film more visually and emotionally engaging is the sense of dread the animal conveys as its senses pick up on unseen threats in their ramshackle hideaway.
Good Boy is certainly one of the more inventive haunted house stories of recent times. But it’s not without its flaws. It has a snappy enough 73-minute running-time, but still has a tendency to drag and overplay the same hand time and again.
Original, it is, but I wanted to roll over and play dead by the end credits. This dog needs to learn some new tricks.
(3/5)