Inventive New Horror Movie Told From Dog’s POV

Earlier than watching sure movies, delicate moviegoers will usually put together themselves by Googling, “Does the canine die?”

It’s so widespread a question that an entire web site exists primarily based on the phrase, meant to warn viewers of varied potential triggers for leisure media, significantly whether or not or not the lovable pet in any given movie makes it to the tip unscathed. However what if we requested as a substitute: “Does the canine see lifeless individuals?”

An creative new horror film due in theaters later this fall flips the haunted home narrative on its head, telling its spooky story not from the haunted home-owner’s perspective however slightly their pet canine.

Ben Leonberg’s directorial debut Good Boy follows an lovable canine named Indy who witnesses otherworldly terrors tormenting his proprietor Todd (Shane Jensen) after they transfer to a brand new residence within the countryside following a household tragedy.

As poor Indy, performed by Leonberg’s real-life canine, turns into an increasing number of disturbed by a malevolent presence in the home, the loyal canine should combat to avoid wasting his human companion, with whom he clearly can’t talk and who can’t see the entities round them.

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Good Boy seems to be in contrast to any horror movie we’ve seen earlier than. Whereas loads of scary motion pictures have featured memorable pets and pet-related scenes, I can’t consider one other movie that’s been explicitly advised from the canine’s POV, which can undoubtedly lend a brand new layer of terror, stress, and emotional weight.

In a press release in regards to the difficult film-making course of, Leonberg mentioned:

When your lead actor is a canine, conventional filmmaking guidelines exit the window: For 3 years, my spouse (additionally the movie’s producer) and I labored round his schedule — eliciting his ‘efficiency’ by making foolish noises, posing him in particular positions, and attractive him round our ‘haunted’ home with treats. All photographs with Indy have been captured on closed units in order that we might preserve his focus, and I solely ended up appearing in it as a result of I’m one in all two individuals Indy really loves and listens to. Fortuitously, I’ve at all times believed the perfect movies emerge due to their constraints, not regardless of them. Horror, particularly, thrives on ingenuity over price range.

Following the movie’s premiere at SXSW in March 2025, Shudder and IFC have now acquired the rights to Good Boy, which Shudder describes as a “singular expertise in perspective-driven horror.” The film, which obtained important acclaim at SXSW, is scheduled to launch in theaters simply in time for spooky season.

“Instructed completely by way of the eyes of Indy, a loyal canine whose terror and willpower to avoid wasting his human change into our personal, the movie delivers a haunting and emotional expertise that introduces a shocking standout efficiency from Indy and a strikingly assured first characteristic from Leonberg,” Emily Grotto, Shudder’s SVP of Acquisitions and Manufacturing, mentioned in a press release.

Good Boy will wag its means into theaters on October 3, 2025.