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Good Boy represents a horror movie distinct from all others. Moviegoers have experienced haunted house movies, but instead of focusing on screaming teens or fearless ghost investigators, the narrative unfolds through the eyes of a dog. (A Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, to be precise.) In Good Boy, Indy the pup has to safeguard his owner as paranormal entities close in on their remote cabin.

Originally slated for a limited release, this swift, 90-minute thriller got a wide release after its trailer went viral, with viewers hurrying to search engines to find out if Indy survives. It's best not to disclose the ending here, but for those wondering where the idea for Good Boy came from in the first place, the origin is explained.

The Conceptual Origin Behind the Film

First-time director Ben Leonberg, who’s also the real-life owner of Indy, notes he intended to create this movie to explore the fears that every dog owner shares.

“I think it originates from a thought or maybe worry every dog owner has had, which is, ‘Why is my dog barking at nothing or staring at nothing?’” Leonberg states. “There's probably a perfectly valid reason for that, but the human imagination tends to imagine the worst, think ghosts. I wanted to exploit that anxiety. Then, in the screenwriting and filming process, it was determining how to tell a story that really adheres to that perspective, where we're limited to everything the dog can even understand as a way to have this narrative unfold.”

Good Boy is groundbreaking in the best way, captivating viewers immediately with a protagonist you inevitably care for and root for, does well with exposition, and employs offhand dialogue from other characters, especially since our protagonist can’t talk.

Building the Animal's Narrative

Leonberg asserts that his dog isn’t giving a performance, but rather it’s the artistry of the film that gives life to each scene. Indy is one of the most innocent protagonists in film history, and that's not lost on its director.

“I think Indy, probably all dogs, all animals, are a sort of hack for pulling on an audience's heartstrings because they are innocent,” Leonberg says. “They don't know they're in the movie. And there's a really interesting lesson just about performance, that he's not performing. I can't say that enough, he does not know he was in a movie, but through filmmaking, the sound design, the music, the shots, the lighting, you can effectively express an emotion and a feeling on his — what are otherwise neutral expressions — and the audience will project a performance onto him. I think that genuinely is how most of the movie works: the filmmaking is telling the audience how to feel, and then they're putting that emotion on. He's listening to us just make silly noises on set. And the audience says, Wow, I'm scared. So the dog must be scared. He's not. He's just trying to figure out what his mom and dad are doing.”

Including even the breed of dog, everything was carefully planned to fuel audience reactions.

“I think we relate to a dog like Indy,” Leonberg comments, gesturing to the pet sitting behind him. “He's not very big, he's only 19 inches high. The camera lives 19 inches off the ground, which was challenging in filmmaking. But I don't know if you would want a big Cujo St Bernard; that would be such a daunting adversary for the supernatural.”

Indy is a bit small when it comes to beasts that might fight the supernatural.

“How could he possibly succeed? That's really good for a story,” Leonberg states. “Also stinking cute.”

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Good Boy is in theaters now.