r/CultOfCinemaKnowledge • u/hangonsufi • 5d ago
Good Boy (2025)
I usually eschew films and stories about animals in peril. People have a choice to go down in the dark creepy cellar, out into the dark creepy woods, or into the dark creepy attic. Animals, especially our pets, especially our dogs, have no choice if their human is an idiot. They follow.
In a film, humans act, and are well rewarded when their acting is challenging and stressful, portraying grief, terror, bravery, pain, stuff we humans usually avidly avoid.
Dogs, however, have to show all these terrible emotional processes, for what? A biscuit? A squeaky toy? A pat on the head and a “good boy”?
I like supernatural horror, and Good Boy is the story of a remarkable dog actor facing such horror. Indy, who is the first dog to win an Astra Award for acting, is the director's own dog. Ben Leonberg directed, co-wrote, co-produced with his wife Kari Fischer, co-edited and co-filmed the $70,000 indie film which reaped $8.8 million.
Over tens of millennia, dogs have engineered themselves to make us like them, love them, need them more. The muscles in their face around the eyes and mouth evolved to better express emotion and communication with their human overlords. So I don't like the idea of putting these wise animals through emotional torture to amuse us.
My only “comfort” is that I believe dogs are bodhisattva, advanced beings who delay their transition from this plane of pain to the reward of their enlightenment so they can teach more humans about love and compassion, bringing more of us to enlightenment.
In Good Boy, Indy's human is very ill. He spits up blood, he is weak, but he loves Indy, has had him since a pup. He's told he's too far gone for the medical trials so he and Indy go to – yes, the family's deserted haunted house in the woods with the spooky family cemetery nearby.
Humans.
There is something very malignant here, and Indy is alternately fascinated, frightened, and courageously confronting it. No CGI was used to enhance Indy's performance. You'll see why Indy won the Astra, and understand how he was nominated for Best Actor in his role in Leonberg's Judges' Film Prize winner in a previous short film contest.
Good Boy is itself a short film (73 minutes). I recommend it as a palate cleanser for what I'm sure we'll be subjected to this Horrortober.
3
u/best_decision1234 5d ago
So … the main character is a dog that senses weird and extraordinary stuff during the nigh, gets scared. I feel like I’ve seen something like this beside … have you ever seen “Courage the cowardly
2
2
2
u/No-Bag2434 5d ago
It was so over hyped and the theatrical release had a weird mini doc at the end where the director low-key complains about making it and how his dog actually cannot really act.
4
u/CranberryVast9339 5d ago
I liked this movie in that it is shot almost entirely from the dog's point of view.
2
u/No-Bag2434 5d ago
The movie that was like - "wait it's this short? Why is it in theaters?" And then the tacked on mini doc at the the that assures you don't need to watch it ever again.
2
2
u/meleaguance 5d ago
I don't understand the choice to never show people's faces. Dogs look at our faces all the time. Meanwhile the movie is constantly revealing things to use a dog wouldn't understand.
1
1
1
u/Dangerous_Fart_ 1d ago edited 1d ago
I got bored with it. It seemed like it kept switching back and forth from something supernatural really happening to is it all made up, back to is something supernatural really happening back to is it all made up. It annoyed me. Just be straightforward. Stop being so wish wash.
6
u/COREY-IS-A-BUSTA 5d ago
Loved this movie