Sitges Festival Day 4: ‘Good Boy’, an intelligent film that tells horror from the point of view of a dog – Film news

Alejandro G. Calvo is now saying goodbye to the fantastic cinema of Sitges to make way for Tomás Andrés, who will continue with the chronicles starting tomorrow. But before heading to Madrid, G. Calvo has left his review of one of the most innovative and curious films you will see this year, especially if we focus on the horror genre.

It is about Good Boya film that was very popular at the festival and that, with just one hour and 20 minutes longbecomes a 100% enjoyable proposition. Arrives in theaters on October 17so don’t miss the opportunity to see it on the big screen.

Directed by Ben Leonberg, who is making his first feature film after making many short films. He has taken his dog Indy and put him at the center of the action in this film about haunted houses in the countryside. The animal and its human companion face a supernatural entity that comes to bother them.

The great innovation that the film presents is that it is told from the point of view of the protagonist dog. Not on a subjective level – although there are subjective levels in the film – but rather the camera lowers and is placed at the height of the dog and not at the level of human eyes, as we are used to seeing in the cinema.

There are daring decisions like showing the dog’s nightmares in a sequence. The dog is really the protagonist and, although he goes out with his owner – played by the director with a body double so that his face cannot be recognized – what the director wanted to do is emulate as much as possible the sensation that animals experience regarding the love they feel for their companions and also, why not, try to find a nice reason for that strange behavior that dogs have from time to time.

‘Good Boy’, a very artisanal film designed shot by shot

During his time at the Sitges festival with his dog Indy, who is the main protagonist of the film, Leonberg explained that it took him three years to finish the film because, having used only his dog, an animal that was not trained for the interpretation -and not having resorted to other specialist dogs-, the filming has been extended to 400 days.

The film works very well for two main reasons: the use of off-screen. As the camera is at the height of the dog, all the spectral apparitions or those that seem to simulate something of terror are told from off-screen. If someone appears, you only see their knees and you don’t know if they belong to a human being or a demonic being. And that use works very well for the film.

Another reason to highlight is the close-ups of the dog. It conveys a lot of emotions due to the pure Kuleshov effect. It follows this rule already invented in the 1920s that if you juxtapose two images, a psychological effect is created that, in some way, unites them. The filmmaker has managed, with those reverse shots associated with what Indy was seeing, to make it seem as if the dog is feeling terror when in reality he is so calm.

Good Boy It is a very intelligent and difficult film to shoot. In fact, Leonberg says that he had a storyboard from start to finish to have each shot designed and controlled in advance. A work of craftsmanship.