Good Boy is a 2025 film, directed by Ben Leonberg.

Born in 2011 DoesTheDogDie.coman online platform that acts as a precious database of possible triggers for the big and small screen. As the title suggests, what started this forum for cinephiles and dog lovers, which today deals with preventing micro-traumas linked to 201 different triggers, is not wanting to witness the death of a canine character. If the fear that even just a hair will be harmed by a four-legged friend is what stops you from getting close to Good Boythe opening film of Alice in the City at the Rome Film Festival 2025, you can sleep relatively peacefully. In multiple interviews the director and co-writer Ben Leonberg he highlighted how his 8-year-old puppy, Indy, is the focus of his first feature film. Winner ofHowl of Fame Award for Best Canine Performance at SXSW 2025, this adorable Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever emerges at the other end with a few bruises, but nothing more. This is the only spoiler we will give you so as not to ruin your vision of a supernatural misadventure that breathes new life into the "haunted house" subgenre. Indy's human is the tormented Todd (Shane Jensen), weakened by chronic lung disease. Both in and out of the hospital, Todd maintains a relationship of pure love with his dog, which he takes with him when he moves to his grandfather's house in the woods (Larry Fessenden), who died years earlier in ambiguous circumstances.

When the house begins to be the scene of inexplicable phenomena, Indy becomes cautious: his sensitivity and loyalty towards Todd make him able to perceive what appears to be an imminent danger, but which his master is unable to - or does not want? - see. The look, in Good Boybelongs to Indy. Already with Presence by Steven Soderbergh, released this summer after its premiere at Sundance 2024, an approach was taking shape that gives horror an "other" point of view from the neutral camera. In a season of rogue nostalgia for the horror that was, with legacy sequel ranging from funny Final Destination: Bloodlines to the forgettable I know what you didit seems clear that horror needs to be experienced through new eyes, be they those of the ghost of Presenceof the killer of In a Violent Nature (on Prime Video), or Indy. If the horror POV is, on the one hand, recognizable thanks to clever marketing and the inevitable reference to TikTok, on the other, it takes on a hyper-personal character which enhances its emotional impact. This is certainly the case with Good Boy which, despite the necessary spoiler, does not skimp on moments of pure terror in which the most classic cabin in the woods offer jump scare which are accompanied by macabre discoveries. Terrifying and tender, Leonberg's film makes the most of its compact duration (the credits roll within the 73 minutes) not only to scare but also to touch, on its tiptoe, with themes such as generational trauma and depression.

Todd is trapped in the quicksand of his condition, with the mud clogging his new home becoming an objective correlative. The slime wadding the outside world, represented by the voice of his sister Vera (Arielle Friedman), who reaches him by telephone. Whether Todd's illness is an allegory of an internal and impenetrable evil is left to the audience to decide. Unlike others elevated horror, Good Boy he doesn't beat on the metaphor to the point of attenuating its power, but rather entrusts the conclusions to those who look at Todd through Indy's expressive eyes. It matters little that his reactions were edited with expert sound mixing, his is one of the most intense performances of the year, canine or otherwise. At the heart of the film, Indy may have a glittering career ahead of him, but no less so is his human Leonberg. Already the author of horror and sci-fi shorts with interesting ideas (the bloody and the funny The Fisherman’s Wife worth a watch), the director has entered the genre panorama with an intelligent first work with minimal dialogue, but capable of competing with productions of much larger caliber and budget.