Good Boy is this year’s horror movie made on a shoestring budget, and which has done very well for its mere $750,000 budget, so far taking $7m at the box office after just over two weeks.
Centered around Indy, a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever owned by director Ben Leonberg, the film is mostly seen through his point of view – occasionally through his eyes, but usually from a fixed camera in a room as he passes through it, giving a feel to the old-style Resident Evil games.
It starts off rather well, as Indy’s concerned when he sees his owner, Todd (Shane Jensen), looking in rather a bad way due to his chronic lung disease, but there’s also a suspicion that the house is haunted and that that’s what caused the death of Todd’s grandfather (Larry Fessenden), who doted on his own dog, Bandit.
Alas, what follows is nothing but a series of horror movie clichés, which are nothing more than “weird shit happens that you’ve seen countless times before”.
Good Boy is a lot of waiting for nothing to happen, just like The Blair Witch Project, probably the most overhyped ‘horror’ film I’ve ever come across. As such, this new film felt like a 20-minute short film that’s been extended to 73 minutes for no reason.
However, it does have one thing I’ve NEVER seen before. Given that we see Indy sticking his head out of the window during the very brief closing credits (around 90 seconds long), EVERYONE STAYED!
Then again, even if they had got up to leave, they wouldn’t have got to the door before the credits had ended. Perhaps, some of them stayed because they hadn’t checked IMDB and didn’t realise it was so short!
Indy does also, technically, act everyone else off the screen… but then you rarely see anyone’s faces. They’re very much secondary to him.
But one particular annoyance… why the chuff was this shot in 2.00:1! 1.85:1 would’ve been a much better option, and bear in mind that films are generally shot at either 1.85:1 or 2.39:1.
This smacks of a movie that was intended only for streaming, but the problem is – as I’ve stated many times – most cinema screens are 2.39:1, but for a film of 2.00:1, it’s treated as a 1.85:1 movie, so with black bars top and bottom – as well as at the sides – the picture is effectively floating in the middle of the screen, and looks ridiculous. And still, modern cinemas do nothing to address this.
And I couldn’t think which of the following to use as a final line for this review, so here’s all three:
- Good Boy is not ‘mutt’ to get excited about.
- Good Boy. Bad film.
- Sit, Ubu, sit. Good dog.
NOTE: There are no mid, nor post-credits scenes.
Good Boy is in cinemas now, but isn’t yet available to pre-order on Blu-ray or DVD. However, once announced, it will appear on the New DVD Blu-ray 3D and 4K releases UK list.
Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 73 minutes
Release date: October 24th 2025
Studio: IFC Films / Shudder
Aspect ratio: 2.00:1 (Redcode RAW (6K)
Cinema: Odeon Trafford Centre
Rating: 2/10
Director: Ben Leonberg
Producers: Kari Fischer, Ben Leonberg
Screenplay: Alex Cannon, Ben Leonberg
Music: Sam Boase-Miller
Cast
Himself: Indy
Todd: Shane Jensen
Vera: Arielle Friedman
Todd’s grandfather: Larry Fessenden
Richard: Stuart Rudin
Weatherman: Hunter Goetz
Doctor: Anya Krawcheck
Bandit: Max
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.