By Joe Gibson
Introduction
This article includes some spoilers, mostly labeled in advance.
Good Boy 2025 (there
have been other films by this same title in 2022 and 2023) is essentially a
haunted house movie where the dog is the main character whose perspective and
reactions frame our understanding of the story and dictate its trajectory. This
is the directorial debut of Ben Leonberg, the real life owner of the dog, Indy,
and it has a very small cast mainly consisting of Indy (the name is the same
for his character), his owner Todd, and a couple other characters. (Leonberg
has directed shorts and has credentials for both receiving a degree in
filmmaking as well as teaching filmmaking to others, but a first feature film
is still a milestone.)
From the moment I
learned this movie existed, it was one of my most anticipated movies of the
year, and, having learned more about it, I find it very impressive. The film
took about three years to film because Indy is just a normal dog, not a trained
actor, and, if you watch the film in theaters right now, there will be a
section at the end where Leonberg talks about how they shot some of those
scenes.
Review
The film is incredibly
atmospheric, firmly planting you in a vulnerable perspective. The camera is low
to the ground as it is for Indy, who is also the only character that the camera
does close-ups for. The sound design plays up the sound of house creaks and
windshield wipers because that is how it would be for the dog (also the
flickering and pulsing of lights viscerally follows the flow of the
supernatural). However, it would be imprecise to say that Indy is the POV
character as the camera follows him rather than protruding from his intentions.
We see the shadows come into view behind him a few seconds before he senses
them so we are in a privileged perspective relative to Indy, where we know what
might happen, but we are still stuck on his level unable to do anything to
change what he is going through.
The film to prove this point
also mixes reality with the surreal, ripping us from Indy’s nightmares to a
Shadow Man’s hunt for Indy to dreamlike visions of another dog. Consequently,
this is at least a little Lynchian; I do not expect great debate over that
point. More than anything else, the film wants you to be able to feel the
horror it creates without a grounding human presence (human faces are largely
out of focus in this movie to allow Indy to step up as the true star), and so
Leonberg’s directing takes literally every opportunity it can to build and
codify that suspense.
However, that is where
it becomes very important that the POV character is not technically Indy but us
along for the ride. As Leonberg reveals if you stay to the end of the theater
experience, they did not have Indy act out these scenes or respond to scary
stimuli (they lured him around the set with quacking noises); they are just
constantly juxtaposting suspense with Indy’s neutral face to get a response.
This is not mathematical precision but a function of the audience establishing emotional
continuity, and I get the sense that Leonberg felt like if he eased up even a
little on the suspense at all, the illusion might be shattered. (At only 72
minutes, even if you find the game tiresome, it is not that long.)
Personally, I found that
formula effective the entire time, but there is also eventually some
progression. Consistently, the film executes its scares through lingering on
juxtaposing images until something appears in the background like Michael
Myers, then pulling back to Indy’s movements, entrenching you in a slow
building suspense. Then, late into the movie, it hits you with two back to back
jumpscares when the threat becomes more tangible. From this point onward, the
reality defying visions and distortions of physical object permanence get more
frequent, pulling us deeper into the house and its secrets.
Though this all is very
interesting, the meat of my reviews are usually the logical consistency of
characters and plot, but, while there is a lot to talk about with that, it is
also very difficult because of the Lynchian nature of this film’s presentation
and its leading man. The movie does not have the capability to explain the
details of the haunting as they occur because Indy is a dog, just weaving him
through open-ended imagery, confrontations with a Shadow and increasing stakes
and obstacles all while still showing him yawn, piss, eat, whine, bark and
sleep.
Interlude
I am about to discuss
some of the finer details of the movie’s plot, but I will give you every
opportunity to leave before I get to those details. First, I should say that I
do not think any embargo exists on spoiling this film especially if doesthedogdie.com was allowed to report
on this movie before the official release, and, even if it does, I am not any
kind of official reviewer of horror media that gets early screenings on
contract to withhold specific details or negative criticism. The only reason I
got to see this on the 2nd and not the 3rd is because theaters around me had
the film open today. Any civilian could have joined me, and any conversation we
have in a public forum would have the potential to be this in depth. I strongly
advise you not to read the rest of this if you have not seen the movie yet. In
a year of great movies, this is still a remarkable experience you should not
deprive yourself of.
In any case uh, when I
got to the theater, I was alone and then realized the full extent of my
actions; I was watching an atmospheric indie horror movie not only in a party
of one but in a completely empty theater. And then for some asinine reason, a
Lego commercial decided to use zombies to make its pitch (I don’t like
zombies). Before it could prime me for terror too much, I realized the
commercial was self-defeating. These were not Haitian Zombies (which I
tolerate) but Romero Ghouls, and they, stuck within their involuntary impulses,
started to gravitate toward the Lego commodities, literally replicating the
critique of consumerism that is Dawn of the Dead but unintentionally this
time.
Anyway, the film still
did suck me into its POV, but I was not terrified. It was more a feeling of
resignation to whatever was going to play out. I have stalled long enough.
Proceed beyond this point if you wish, but do not say I did not give you every
opportunity to avoid spoilers.
(Some of) The Plot
The film starts with a
cold open demonstrating Indy’s perceptiveness and Todd’s illness, splicing in
organic exposition to show the backstory of these two characters. Indy, as an
expressive character growing in knowledge over the course of the story, does enforce
his will on the plot in ways to make him a three dimensional character. Indy’s
loyalty to Todd is the central idea to this story, motivating most of the
scenes. Though I hesitate to fit it into the traditional Hero’s Journey
structure, Indy crosses a threshold exiting the car and going into the scary
house because Todd asks him to, and Indy will fight more to save Todd than for
his own survival.
Following the cold open
health episode, after they discharge Todd from the hospital, he decides to
leave his apartment and go to his deceased grandfather’s house complete with a
graveyard of his many family members that died young in the forest nearby. The
grandfather’s house functions as a Gothic Old Dark one, and, while the entity
seems to be following Todd there, it becomes clear that his grandfather’s death
and the reputation of weird happenings at this house are tied to this. Todd’s
name means death, so the stakes are clear.
As ghostly visions of a
Shadow Man and an older dog correspond to opening doors and disembodied
whining, Indy will have to figure out what happened to the grandfather and his
dogs and what awaits them in the cellar. Todd, to an extent, is in his own movie
getting denied a certain type of healthcare and using candles and incense for
homeopathic therapy. When they go into the forest, a character in the distance
reveals he is a foxhunter and offers warnings to our heroes.
Still, Todd isolates
from society and his sister, and barely interacts with the foxhunter, going
deeper into the possession of the Shadow, even shutting Indy out from being
able to help him to increasing degrees. In these lonely moments, the dog Bandit
enters the story, overlaying his memories with our experience of Indy’s
perception (we view Bandit and Indy overlaid after Indy finds projections of
Bandit’s bloody bandana, and Indy proceeds as if he genuinely perceived those
events happening). The Shadow Man’s aura is pervasive; cutting through Bandit’s
scenes by being the villain of that story to the point that it took me
embarrassingly long to realize that the wisest interpretation of those scenes
was that Bandit is actually a good guy.
I mentioned there are
two back to back jump scares, and I will clarify that on a set-up and pay-off
level, one of those is easily predictable because one of the horror movie VHS
on the television screen shows that type of scare happening. The foxhunter also
repeatedly foreshadows that fox traps are in the area, which we see pay-off
late into the movie. The storytelling in that regard is careful, so I really do
not know what to do with “Indy has a chain on him that he can’t remove that
suddenly transfers to being around Todd” except for magic, unreliable narration
or some kind of subtextual reading.
I like things to make
sense, but I also cannot tell you how much of those confrontations with the
Shadow and Bandit were dreams (dogs sleep a lot throughout the day). The ending
is actually probably the best place to further that discussion, but the
original disclaimer about spoiling the plot would magnify when discussing the
ending. Please do not finish this essay before watching the movie, but it is
here for when you do.
The Ending (Major
Spoilers Past Here)
I know the discourse surrounding
this movie very much relies on the notion that the dog’s survival is the only
acceptable and watchable conclusion. (Some have gone even further, declaring
that nothing bad can happen to the owner either because it would make the dog
sad or that nothing at all should happen to scare the dog, at which point we
don’t even have a movie.) However, I have had a more nuanced perspective this
entire time. From a dog’s perspective, Indy fighting tooth and nail to his very
last and saving his owner, then dying in his arms, would be a glorious worthy
end. Even so, there is a logistical error.
What can a dog do to
defeat a ghost/demon? Dogs may very well be the most pure creatures on this
Earth, but the utility of a horror movie based around them is their comparative
powerlessness, physically, emotionally and intellectually. I praised the
Lynchian dreams before, but with those come questions about the true nature of
what he is facing. The flashes of supernatural situations snapping back into
the mundane, are they just visions, or does Indy, with the memory of a dog,
merely forget fighting his way out, or is it Todd or Bandit saving him most of
those times? Each of those means a different thing.
Going back into the
film, the dialogue between Todd and his sister Vera would probably clarify more
about what happened to their grandfather, and it is possible I might be able to
find something more out about how much power Bandit has as a potential Big
Good/Mentor character in this story, but there are deliberate holes here at
least to my understanding. I have previously reviewed the atmospheric Noriaki
Yuasa directed The Snake Girl And The Silver Haired Witch, which had a similar
amount of supernatural and mundane wire crossing that led to logical questions
about how the plot actually happens. The contradictions made Sayuri necessarily
an unreliable narrator, but I posited that because it was the villain casting
doubt on her perspective and Shojo manga (the source material’s genre) focuses
on systemic lack of trust in women and girls, the decision was done to match
supernatural events to mundane subtext (https://planninecrunch.blogspot.com/2024/09/plan9crunch-review-snake-girl-and.html). Whether or not that
makes sense, we need to consider what else this movie is saying than just
“here’s a dog and his owner and a Shadow Man trying to kill them.”
Alright if you’re still
here, you get to read the ending now (I just can’t shake you, huh). Indy
survives, but Todd does not. Todd finally understands the full scope of what is
happening to him as he melts into the goopy skeletonized Shadow Man, praising
Indy as a good boy but telling him he can’t save him. Vera arrives and finds
Indy, with the implication that she takes him with her. I still have not
spoiled that much about the individual scenes and set-pieces, but I genuinely
cannot help myself trying to at least pose some interpretations for this movie.
(It was really jarring to see Indy fail to save Todd, but I think it makes
sense and also might hint at deeper subtext.)
Now, I am pretty sure
the Shadow Man was in the cold open, and, even if he weren’t, the physical
symptoms of Todd and his grandfather match as well as their ultimate fates. The
affliction, whatever it is, affects Todd young, as many of his relatives in the
graveyard have died young. There is also a non-zero chance that his grandfather
is the Shadow Man, and the idea of Todd becoming his grandfather symbolically
has some directorial merit to it. The grandfather predominantly appears through
his VHS tapes in the television screen, but there is a notable scene framing
Todd’s anguished head in the screen where his grandfather’s would be. Up until
that point in the movie, that is technically the clearest view of Todd’s face.
(Until the end, no human character gets to really show their face, which
matches the Shadow Man in aesthetic.)
These similarities mean
something, and, though this is a supernatural movie, pending a rewatch, I think
it is a valid interpretation that the reason this film has an unreliable
narrator that cannot save the day might be because any inheritable affliction
that causes Todd to die young would be horrific for a dog to see. Indy grew up
as Todd’s dog and now has to witness this dramatic decline of mental and
physical health. As I write this, I am having difficulty locating what would
necessarily change if this film were just an artistic depiction of a dog’s
perspective on his owner’s decline and death. Let me put it this way. Lynchian
works meld the mundane and macabre into a surreal dreamlike existence that
makes you question how much of what you are witnessing is actually a dream.
That mechanism would also work in the inverse; how much of these supernatural
happenings are just the way that a dog sees the mundane events?
Throughout the movie,
Todd coughs up blood, but he also takes unspecified damage to his arm (Indy
notices a bandage), sleepwalks, bangs his head on the wall, stops breathing,
witnesses himself sleeping and merges in and out with the violent Shadow Man.
This is a verifiable cacophony of physical and mental symptoms to where I would
not even attempt a diagnosis, but a hereditary illness is killing him and
robbing him of his sanity, with his last moment being declarative clarity that
nothing can save him. Can you really tell me that I am wrong for wondering if
there is a more literal meaning for all of this?
Conclusion
In summation, this is a
very moving and suspenseful movie positioning us with the dog while also maybe
having some kind of deeper meaning that further discourse can help us arrive
at. You may find the movie tired and repetitive for just how much of it lathers
on that suspense, but this is an experiment from an indie filmmaker (and I also
think the execution makes it a masterpiece). Please support this movie’s
theatrical run; I do not really know where else you can see something like this
movie except if you vote with your dollar that this kind of tense captivating
experience is an aspect to modern horror. Let us know your thoughts on the
movie in a comment, and thank you all for reading but curses if you read this
far without watching the movie first.
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