Good Boy
Sometimes people do not wish to be told the bad news, regardless that it may help them in the long run. Todd is such a person, refusing to talk to his doctor, ignoring the pleas of his sister Vera who begs him to take better care of himself, relocating from New York city to the decaying backwoods home where their grandfather died under mysterious circumstances, his only company Indy whom Todd knows will a good boy.
Together since he was a puppy, at Todd’s side through his illness and hospitalisation, Indy is loyal, adoring, aware that something is wrong beyond what his master can perceive, shadows encroaching as his condition deteriorates, a shape manifesting in the house and leaving muddy footprints, Indy determined to protect Todd as best he can with the fierce and undying devotion only a dog can conceive.
Directed by Ben Leonberg from a script co-written with Alex Cannon, Good Boy stars his very own dog Indy as himself, charming and disarming, a natural star whom the camera loves, carrying the film and conveying every emotion the story demands, handsome, intelligent and patient, a soft-furred leading man on four paws who performs all his own stunts and does it all without saying a single word.
A performance which requires precision, obedience and understanding, with his sweet face and kind eyes Indy carries the film, Good Boy sometimes necessarily abstract as Todd (the largely unseen Shane Jensen, often shot in backlit silhouette, from behind or the neck down) moves into “the cursed family home” where gramps (Larry Fessenden) died, he and the rest of the clan buried in their private plot in the misty forest of fallen trees and foxes.
Indy watching through the night and protecting Todd, Good Boy is a film filled with the static of Poltergeist, old home videos of gramps and his own dog Bandit which sometimes seem to react to events in the present, and the shining eyes in the dark of The Amityville Horror, the house filled with flickers and flashbacks and the ghosts of the past which persist in the haunted house, perhaps the thing which Indy senses the spectre of death itself, come for his master.
Creepy and unsettling, like the knowledge that a spider is lurking in the room, hiding and waiting, Good Boy takes its time to find its form and much of it is frustratingly shot in the dark, but created entirely authentically with no post-production manipulation of Indy’s performance it is a unique and fascinating film, its imperfections forgivable for what it achieves, for when what cannot be changed becomes inevitable all one can do is remain, a faithful companion until the end.
Good Boy will be on general release from Friday 10th October
