“Good Boy” Now Available on 4K UHD Blu-ray from Visions Home Video
Indy is a good boy, a loyal nova Scotia Tolling Retriever pet and friend to his owner Todd who’s had him since being a puppy. When Indy senses trouble, a troubling shadowy figure lurking and following his owner, he tries to do all that he can to protect the one he loves the most. Struggling with a chronic illness, Todd retreats to his grandfather’s isolated cabin deep within the woods for a little rest and relaxation after a medical scare that put him in the hospital. Indy senses the supernatural force has followed them away from the city and into the rural family home. As the presence moves about the house, moving closer and closer toward his friend, Todd’s chronic illness becomes increasingly worse, and Indy’s nightmares bend reality as the shadow begins to take a horrifying shape. Todd’s disease has him nearly incapacitated and unaware of the dangers that surround him, leaving Indy as the last line of defense against the looming dark force that wants to take him.
Pet owners rejoice! A horror movie with a story from the perspective of its star, a dog. The 2025 supernatural thriller “Good Boy” has Indy, the then 8-year-old dog’s real name, headlining the film, directed by Indy’s owner Ben Leonberg, horror short filmmaker with such recent credits as “The Fisherman’s Wife” and “Dead Head” from within the last decade. Leonberg also wrote the script alongside Alex Cannon and took over three years to make due to the complexity of working with untrained animal actors, a task that’s easier said than done, to accomplish Indy’s character narrative from his point of view, and, of course, the rigorous A-to-Zs of creating a feature length film. Leonberg coproduces “Good Boy” with Kari Fischer and Brian Goodheart. “Good Boy” is a self-referential studio made film with the company name called “What’s Wrong With Your Dog?”
If casting an animal with a hesitation stillness and pensive piercing eyes, Indy is the four-legged fur baby on the short list. This specific Nova Scotia Tolling Retriever, a breed known for his hunting qualities and retrieval of gunned down carcass and not acting, is an untrained thespian by all means but has a multitude of expressions that work toward the menacing supernatural sense of dread and uneasiness. When Indy stares into a dark corner, it’s shadows expanding slow across the walls and floors, the stare does convey concern. When Indy cries and whimpers in apprehension of being left alone or his owner unaccompanied outside the house, those high-pitched cries and frantic movements from window-to-window bring narrative tension to unsafe separation from man and his loyal best friend-protector. It’s clear that director Ben Leonberg treats his star pup with star focus, providing a dog-level perspective view that incepts and evokes a reaction just like any human character. This applies even to the interactions with Todd (Shane Jensen) and his swaying, emotional reactions working through his own ebb-and-flow pain of a mysterious illness that plagues him. Our first scene with Todd has him sitting motionless on the couch, in the dark, and drooling blood from his mouth in an indistinguishable view of his face, a motif amongst all human characters in frame to keep the focus on Indy’s facial Rolodex of emotions. We never do know what’s wrong with Todd, whether be cancer, organ failure, or perhaps even the supernatural’s malevolent exposure, but it’s made clear he’s on death’s door in more ways than one. The only human face shown is through the VCR playback of Todd’s grandfather and it’s the unique bone structure of horror friend Larry Fessenden (“Habit,” “Jakob’s Wife”) who often seems to be in, in some way, shape, or form, in a number of Shudder distributed films recently. Arielle Friedman and Stuart Rudin bring up the small cast rear.
“Good Boy” is simply not a novel concept. There have been a few animal centered and perception movies throughout the decades, to name a few we start with “Babe,” the loveable little pig who finds friendship with a barn spider, then there was the tearjerking one with an orphaned bear cub who hitches to an adult male to avoid game hunters in “The Bear,” and, lastly, “Homeward Bound” was an adventurous return home with human voiceovers for two dogs and one cat team. The element “Good Boy” does differ from those aforesaid examples. Aside from giving Indy a voice, the non-personified canine is dropped into an intensely atmospheric horror framework that removes the safety net of having opposable thumbs and the misunderstanding between man and animal that makes the tense situation that much more riveting when Indy can’t express to his human the danger that lurks. There’s a heavy theme of animal sensing danger or something amiss with someone carrying an unseen disease, that disease in “Good Boy” manifests as the shadowy figure that acts like the harbinger of death, or to the dark tune of a grim reaper, lying-in-waiting and eventually reaching for Indy’s human pal, Todd. In this concept is the tragic downhill of Todd and the heartbreaking care Indy tries to protect and care for his unsuspecting master but in between all of that concern and drive for Indy is a steady fear something isn’t right, looking past Todd’s ailment toward a showier threat that, to an extent, plays like a device of ignorance for Indy, one that truly distracts him for the real danger plaguing Todd that bets the question, do dogs cope with trouble by creating a diversion?
Visions Home Video, a premium home media label from UK’s Vertigo Releasing, retrieves “Good Boy” for a UK-Ireland 4K UHD Blu-ray release that’s supported on a HEVC encoded, 2160p ultra high-definition, BD100. Through surreal nightmares, inky darkness, and graded with primarily dark gray and bluish tones, “Good Boy” faces images challenges with an indie production attempting to instill atmospheric fear and subtle bumps in the night. That challenge is ultimately met its match with DolbyVision that’s able to decode those type, often blocky, negative spaces and darker color scheme in its high dynamic range. Texturing works to fiber explicate Indy’s golden coat but much of the other details are kept in the dark as Indy’s, with his coloring, is represents almost like a bright spot amongst the color palette, even Todd is obscured in darkness, rain, or mist, but the details that do show do emerge. Two English audio tracks are encoded with a 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and a LPCM 2.0 Stereo. In regard to the surround mix, back and side channels diffuse the atmosphere non-diegetic sounds to create an immersive environment of a creaky old house pitter-pattered by rain and gusts of wind. Coupled with the front work dialogue and the forceful jump scare moments creates a cinematic bubble that puts viewers right into the dark and stormy eeriness while sitting in their living room, if the viewer has the appropriate audio setup. Dialogue is clean, clear, and prominent albeit ambiance tries to nudge it out of the way at times to but unsuccessfully. Minor instances of depth of Indy, or even the presence, scurrying about the house have leveled balance in what is mostly a still air progression of Indy’s voiceless communication efforts. English is the only available subtitles. Special features include a making-of featurette Making an Indy Film and the theatrical trailer. There are more attractive physical features within Visions Home Video’s black and silver two-toned cardboard O-ring slipcover that leans into the shadow motifs. The same image art is also on the Scanova one-sided sleeve but inside, in the insert, is a double-sided folded mini poster with the same art plus an additional design. There are also four post cards with stills from the feature. The UK 15 certified release has strong horror and bloody images in its brisk 72-minute and region free runtime.
Last Rites: In horror, animals are mostly the perceptive ones, able to see and sense danger that can’t be seen with the human naked eye, and Ben Leonberg captures that phenomena through a fear-induced illness metaphor, one that lies and waits until terminal lucidity knows there’s no escaping the inevitable. Not even man’s best friend can stop it.
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