I queued up ‘Good Boy’ tonight expecting a clever gimmick—a horror film from a dog’s POV, sure, that sounds interesting. Seventy minutes later, I’m sitting here with my laptop, my own dog curled up nearby, trying to process why this movie left me feeling so devastated. This isn’t your typical horror film, and that ending? We need to talk about that ending.
The Bold Concept
What immediately struck me about this film was its audacious premise: telling a supernatural horror story entirely from a dog’s perspective. Director Ben Leonberg took a massive creative risk here, and for the most part, it pays off brilliantly. We follow Indy, a loyal retriever, as he moves with his owner Todd into a rural farmhouse that once belonged to Todd’s grandfather. From the moment they arrive, something feels deeply wrong, but only Indy can sense it.
The genius of this approach is how it taps into something dog owners instinctively understand—dogs perceive things we can’t. They bark at empty corners, fixate on shadows, and react to presences we dismiss. Leonberg weaponizes this familiar behavior and transforms it into genuine terror. When Indy cowers and stares at something we can barely see, it’s unnerving precisely because it feels authentic to how dogs actually behave.
The Horror Elements
The film introduces us to a terrifying mud-covered figure that stalks Todd throughout the house. Indy sees this entity clearly, but Todd remains oblivious to the danger he’s in. There’s also the ghostly apparition of Bandit, another dog who belonged to Todd’s grandfather and mysteriously disappeared when his owner died.
What makes the scares work isn’t just the visual design of these entities (though that muddy figure is genuinely disturbing), it’s the helplessness. We’re experiencing everything through Indy’s limited perspective and capabilities. He can’t explain what he’s seeing. He can’t make Todd understand. He can only react with the tools a dog has: barking, whimpering, trying to physically intervene. That powerlessness amplifies every moment of dread.
The cinematography deserves special mention here. Keeping the camera at dog-level height throughout the film creates this claustrophobic, disorienting effect. We see legs, furniture, and shadows from angles that make familiar spaces feel alien and threatening.
Todd’s Deterioration
As the film progresses, Todd becomes increasingly ill. He’s coughing up blood, growing weaker, and his behavior toward Indy shifts from affectionate to distant and occasionally cruel. There’s a heartbreaking scene where he chains Indy outside in the rain, a moment that feels like a betrayal to both Indy and the audience.
The ambiguity of Todd’s condition is fascinating. Is he being possessed by the entity? Is he simply suffering from a terminal illness that’s affecting his personality? The film refuses to give us a clear answer, and that ambiguity makes it richer. It reminded me of “The Shining” in that way—you can interpret the supernatural elements as literal or as manifestations of internal decay, and both readings work.
That Ending: Did Evil Actually Win?
Here’s where I have complicated feelings. The climax sees Indy breaking free from his chain and racing into the cellar, where he discovers Bandit’s skeleton—confirming the previous dog died trying to save his owner. Indy makes it upstairs to Todd’s bedroom, and there’s this brief moment of tenderness before Todd sees his own dead body on the bed. The muddy entity drags him into the basement as Indy frantically tries to intervene.
Todd’s final words to Indy are devastating: “You’re a good dog, but you can’t save me.”
And he doesn’t. Todd dies. Indy fails in his mission.
This is what bothers me, though I understand why others might see it differently. From one perspective, evil—or death, or illness, or whatever that entity represents—wins. Todd is dead. Indy couldn’t protect him despite his desperate efforts. The house has now claimed two owners and their devoted dogs have both been traumatized by their inability to prevent these deaths.
The Director’s Perspective vs. Mine
Director Leonberg has stated he doesn’t view the ending as sad, particularly for Indy. His argument is that the film inverts our typical relationship with pet mortality—instead of learning about death through losing a pet, we’re experiencing a dog learning about death through losing a human. There’s something philosophically interesting about that reversal.
He also points out that Indy survives and goes to live with Todd’s sister Vera, which is explicitly a better fate than Bandit suffered (starving to death alone in that cellar). The post-credits scene showing how various shots were filmed apparently helps lighten the emotional weight, though I’m still sitting with the heaviness of that ending.
But here’s the thing: even if Indy physically survives, there’s a spiritual defeat here that’s hard to shake. The entity—whether literal ghost or metaphorical representation of terminal illness—accomplished its goal. Todd’s grandfather died of this mysterious lung condition. Todd died of it too. The house has this terrible pattern, and nothing was able to break it. Not love, not loyalty, not Indy’s brave attempts to intervene.
The Metaphor of Illness
The more I think about it, the more I believe the muddy figure is meant to represent terminal illness itself. Dogs can detect diseases in humans—there’s actual science behind this. They can smell cancer, sense oncoming seizures, and recognize when their humans are seriously ill. What Indy’s experiencing isn’t a traditional haunting but the horrifying awareness that his person is dying and there’s nothing he can do about it.
This reading makes the ending even more tragic because it removes any possibility of victory. You can defeat a ghost. You can cleanse a house. You can’t punch illness in the face. The entity wins because death always wins eventually. That’s the horror Leonberg is really getting at—not supernatural evil, but the natural, inevitable evil of mortality.
The parallel with Bandit and Todd’s grandfather reinforces this. Same house, same illness, same outcome. It’s generational trauma made literal. Both dogs sensed the danger, both tried desperately to help, and both lost their humans to something they couldn’t comprehend or fight.
Technical Achievement
Setting aside my thematic reservations about the ending, I have to acknowledge the incredible technical achievement here. Getting these performances out of a real dog (not CGI, not animatronics) is remarkable. Indy the actor is giving a genuinely nuanced performance—terror, confusion, determination, grief. And apparently, according to that post-credits scene, he had no idea he was even in a movie. He was just being a dog while Leonberg and his team captured authentic canine behavior and edited it into a coherent narrative.
The restraint shown in the horror elements also impresses me. There are no cheap jump scares. The terror builds slowly through atmosphere and mounting dread. When the scares do hit, they feel earned.
Why It Matters
“Good Boy” is getting significant attention for a reason. It premiered at SXSW 2025 to strong reviews and has earned over $2.3 million in its opening weekend, making it one of Shudder’s most successful theatrical releases. Critics are calling it “visually striking” and “emotionally devastating,” and those descriptions are accurate.
What makes it significant beyond its box office success is how it expands what horror can be. By shifting perspective to a non-human protagonist, Leonberg forces us to experience familiar genre elements in unfamiliar ways. The haunted house, the protective companion, the deteriorating victim—these are all horror staples, but seeing them through canine eyes makes them fresh and genuinely affecting.
Final Thoughts
So where does this leave me? I’m glad I saw “Good Boy.” It’s bold, technically impressive, and emotionally powerful. Indy’s performance will stick with me, as will several of the film’s more disturbing images. It’s the kind of horror that respects its audience’s intelligence and doesn’t spell everything out.
But I can’t shake my initial reaction to the ending. Maybe that’s the point. Maybe Leonberg wants us to sit with that discomfort, to feel Indy’s helplessness, to confront the reality that sometimes love isn’t enough and bad things happen to good people (and good boys). Maybe there’s value in a horror film where the monster isn’t really defeated, where the house wins, where death is just death and there’s no mystical solution.
Or maybe I just wanted Indy to save Todd. Maybe I wanted the good boy to win. Maybe that’s my weakness as a viewer, my need for catharsis that the film deliberately withholds.
Either way, “Good Boy” is a film that will generate conversation and debate. The ambiguity Leonberg builds into the ending—is it supernatural or purely medical? Is it sad or strangely hopeful?—means different viewers will take away different experiences. For me, right now, it feels like the darkness won. The entity, whether ghost or cancer, achieved its goal. Indy survives, but at what cost?
I guess that’s what makes it effective horror. Three days later, I’m still thinking about it, still trying to process what I witnessed, still a little haunted by that muddy figure and Indy’s desperate attempts to save his person.
Maybe in time I’ll come around to the director’s more optimistic reading. Maybe I’ll see Indy’s survival as the real victory. But right now, sitting here processing what I just watched, all I can think is: the good boy deserved better. Todd deserved better. And that house deserves to burn down before it claims anyone else.
Rating: 4/5 stars – Brilliant concept and execution, but the ending will divide audiences. Worth watching for the sheer audacity of its premise and Indy’s incredible performance, even if it leaves you emotionally wrecked.
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