“Good Boy” The Horror Film Told From a Dog’s POV Is Already Turning Heads
Ben Leonberg’s debut feature, starring his real-life dog Indy, puts audiences inside a haunted farmhouse through canine eyes.
August 18 EST: Horror has been told from the point of view of ghosts, killers, victims, even the occasional haunted doll. But a dog? That’s where Good Boy, the debut feature from filmmaker Ben Leonberg, is making its mark and why genre fans can’t stop talking about it.
A Haunted House Seen at Floor Level
The film, which premiered at SXSW this spring, follows Todd (Shane Jensen) and his dog Indy as they move into a creaky family farmhouse rumored to be haunted. The twist we see it all through Indy’s eyes. Not in a cartoonish Homeward Bound way, but in a grounded, sensory-driven style. Shadows, sounds, the tilt of a head toward something the human can’t see that’s where the chills come from.
Leonberg, who co-wrote the film with Alex Cannon, insists Indy wasn’t acting so much as being himself. “This isn’t Air Bud or Lassie,” he told PEOPLE when the trailer dropped. The film avoids the trap of anthropomorphism; instead, the scares come from instinct and raw presence. Think of it as horror stripped back to primal awareness.
Indy, the Breakout Star
At SXSW, Indy snagged the festival’s inaugural “Howl of Fame” award, a cheeky but well-earned nod to his scene-stealing turn. Festival jurors praised how the pup’s natural reactions transformed kitchens and stairwells into ominous, nerve-shredding spaces. Not bad for a debut performance from a dog who, unlike most actors, probably had no idea he was in a horror movie.
The response online has been equally playful. Reddit threads are full of fans joking they’ll never trust their own dog’s 3 a.m. stares at the wall again. But beneath the memes is genuine curiosity can a film carried by a dog’s point of view sustain feature-length tension? Early reviews suggest yes.
Timing The Release Just Right
Shudder scooped up distribution rights in May, covering the U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. The release is timed smartly October 3, just as Halloween season kicks into overdrive. With a crowded fall slate Joker Folie à Deux and Smile 2 are both looming Good Boy is positioned as the buzzy outsider, the horror movie that dares to look at things differently. Literally.
The film is also still doing the rounds on the festival circuit, with stops at the Overlook Film Festival and Seattle International Film Festival, further building word-of-mouth before it hits theaters.
A Trailer That Got People Barking
When PEOPLE debuted the first trailer earlier this month, it played like a proof-of-concept reel for Leonberg’s gamble. The shots are low, tight, and unsettling hallways from ankle height, shadows just out of frame, silence broken by Indy’s sharp attention. It’s uncanny, and it’s different from the usual trailer jump-scare factory.
The clip quickly sparked online chatter, with horror fans applauding the ambition. “It’s either going to be incredible or completely unhinged and I’m here for it,” one Reddit user wrote. That blend of skepticism and anticipation is exactly what a film like this thrives on.
Why This Matters For Horror Right Now
The genre has been on a hot streak of experimentation lately from the skin-crawling intimacy of Skinamarink to the suburban absurdity of Talk to Me. Good Boy joins that wave by reminding audiences that horror doesn’t have to be explained, only felt. Watching a dog experience dread taps into something oddly universal the loyalty of pets, the way animals notice things we don’t, the primal fear that maybe they know something we can’t see.
That emotional hook may be the film’s secret weapon. Yes, it’s a supernatural chiller, but at its core, it’s about a dog trying to protect his human. That’s the kind of angle that moves beyond horror diehards and into broader cultural conversation.
Come October, Good Boy could be the sleeper horror hit that gets people peeking nervously at their pets not just their closets.
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A bi-coastal pop culture critic and former indie screenwriter, Gia covers Hollywood, streaming wars, and subculture shifts with razor wit and Gen Z intuition. If it’s going viral, she already knew about it.
