I have really been wanting to write a review of the movie Good Boy, since seeing on opening day.
This was honestly my most anticipated horror movie of 2025, although I admit the bar this year is extremely low. After being gravely disappointed by Weapons, I go into everything with low expectations.
But, as a dog lover and also a lover of experimental horror, Good Boy was a must see.
I have to admit, though, I was also scared for this one.
As a child, I absolutely refused to watch any movie where I thought the dog might die. I'm not sure if any of my fellow 90s kids recall a movie called Fluke, but I watched that as a child and it left me positively traumatized. (Looking back, it was extremely dark subject matter for a movie aimed at children and families...dog death aside, even. I don't think my eight or nine year old self was ready to learn so much about death in general.) My mother used to offer to rent me movies about dogs, one specific one that sticks out is My Dog Skip, and I absolutely refused. I would only watch dog-centric movies if it was absolutely for certain that the dog did not die.
Though it did not exist in my youth, I am grateful that we now have doesthedogdie.com to assist us with choosing movies carefully.
Speaking of, entries on the site said that the dog in Good Boy did not, in fact, die, but the movie was so new that I wasn't sure how trustworthy that was. And so I decided to brave it, knowing that it could very much happen. This was a horror movie, after all.
But, I am happy to report that Indy the dog survives the movie, and gets what I suppose would be the happiest ending given the situation.
There's not much I can really say about the plot of the movie itself...dog moves to secluded old house with sickly owner, dog starts seeing strange things the owner can't see and reacting to them...I can't really give a play-by-play without it sounding redundant, but seeing all of this from the point of view of a dog was very interesting. It reminded me of being in a dream, where you want to scream or speak, but can't. Indy the dog's expressions were also so spot on...You'd never know he wasn't actually looking at some supernatural entity when this was filmed.
What I really wanted to talk about, though, was my theory on what the "supernatural entity" actually represented.
The movie opens with Todd, Indy's owner, coughing up blood. It's implied he's been sick for some time, though what his ailment is is never specifically stated. For some reason, he decides to move up to an old, secluded creepy house that had previously belonged to his grandfather. While there, Indy begins seeing a dark presence looming around the house, and also starts to have visions of Todd's grandfather, his death, and also visions of the grandfather's dog and what he saw as his own owner was dying.
Todd mentions once on a walk through a family cemetery, that many of his relatives died up there, and most of them died young. At one point, Todd's sister, Vera, mentions that Indy may be acting strangely because dogs can sense sickness.
Which brings me to my theory.
I don't think there was a supernatural entity in the house at all. I think Indy was seeing a manifestation of whatever Todd had wrong with him, and the movie was ultimately a metaphor for watching someone you love die and not being able to do anything about it, but staying loyal up until the end.
About halfway through the movie, I started to draw parallels to American Horror Story: NYC, the season in which the main villain was an entity known as "Big Daddy." Big Daddy never spoke or even really interacted much with anyone, but always seemed to be present when someone died or some sort of perilous event was happening to the main characters. Ultimately, it turned out that Big Daddy was never a person or even a ghost or demon. He was meant to represent a physical manifestation of AIDS, which was rampant during the time period in which the season is set.
And that's what I see in Good Boy. The monster doesn't represent something supernatural. It's simply the generational curse of whatever disease seems to be rampant in Todd's family, and the dogs, both Indy and the dog that had belonged to Todd's grandfather, were able to sense it and see it as this evil thing taking over their owners' lives, trying to pull them under. The dogs feel compelled to fight this thing, though they're never quite sure what it actually is, all they know is that it's threatening the life of the person they love the most. Through the innocent eyes of a dog, some malignant disease changing their owner in terrifying ways, would most definitely look like a demon constantly poised to attack.
Good Boy did a fantastic job of portraying the love and devotion of a dog, and it was so interesting, at the end of the movie, to see how it was actually filmed, with Indy just doing his thing around his own home, with the shots of what he was supposedly reacting to added later. Indy's performance is easily one of my favorites in horror this year, but I'm always a little biased toward a cute dog.
If anyone is wondering how traumatic the ending is, it's sad, but not as bad as it could have been. Vera ultimately comes to collect Indy after Todd's passing, and while he considers just waiting down in the strange cellar of the old house, where he witnessed Todd's soul get taken away by the entity in his visions, and where the bones of the grandfather's dog still lie, Indy goes with her, and through the credits we see him riding shotgun with his head out the window, back home with her.
There are some moments of peril for Indy, most notably a scene where is almost choked to death by a trap meant for a fox, and another where Todd's frustration with his illness leads him to chain Indy outside in a storm, but there's nothing as nearly hard to watch as I was expecting, which is a good thing. One of the most upsetting images is probably that of the grandfathers dog's bones in the cellar, especially when you think about how long he likely waited there out of loyalty to his owner.
Good Boy, while not really what I was expecting, is definitely one of my favorite movies that I've seen this year. Here's hoping for all the Indy merch very soon. This good boy is a true horror icon.
Stay spooky, my friends.
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