Good Boy (2025)

Original ideas are very rare nowadays. Good Boy was a mystery screening at my cinema and the set up of this film  was that it was a horror film but from the perspective of the dog.  The film follows Indy who along with his owner move to an isolated house in the middle of the woods and as you can imagine things go wrong.

I thought that Indy was adorable and did wonder whether a lot or some of his performance was achieved with CGI or AI but it looks like it was 100% genuine and the IMDB says the film took 3 years to film which if true explains why the film was only 73 minutes. Dogs are always going to be adorable and easy to like in film or television but the way that the film makes you root for Indy is quite impressive and when he comes across the skeleton of the previous dog it was such a sad moment. His owner Todd is suffering from a lung issue and he appears to being taken over by the mysterious shadowy figure and at the end is seems to be suggested that the shadowy figure has taken Todd into the darkness and ended his life seemed a bit random because the downside of just having Todd on his own for 90% of the time means that we don't get things explained and I am not talking about a full detailed exposition scene but just something to tie things together. The character of Vera is pretty much useless as she doesn't seem to do anything except pester Todd and then appear at the end to rescue Indy.  I was literally amazed when the cinema lights went up at the end of the film cause I was expecting a final scene but there wasn't and I must admit that it did feel like 

Whilst the film doesn't win any awards for originality when it comes to story structure it does win originality awards for the fact that Indy is the focus of the film. We never see the faces of the humans apart from brief shots or when there is something obstructing the view. It did remind me (in a good way) of a Tom & Jerry cartoon when you would never see above the humans knees and so we were in the world of Tom & Jerry and the adults/humans were not really the main focus. 

I thought overall that Good Boy was a good horror film and a lot better than the premise suggested. The novelty of filming things from the dogs POV or level was used well and the director resisted the urge to break away from that and have a traditional scene with the humans.