Content warning/Editor’s Note: This review will contain spoilers for “Good Boy.”

This October, a new and strange movie, “Good Boy,” was released in theaters. The horror movie follows a dog named Indy. The movie shows what it is like from a dog’s perspective, from a third-person point of view, as the dog tries to protect his owner, Todd, from a weird, lurking shadow in the house. 

The movie opens with Todd’s sister, Vera, trying to call Todd, but Todd is not answering; there is blood coming down from his face and dripping on the phone. Indy, not knowing what to do, stays where he is. This part of the movie felt suspicious and made me excited to keep watching. 

Shortly later in the movie, while it is raining really hard, Todd and Indy are by themselves. Todd is outside, drenched in the rain, trying to do something as Indy watches him from inside the car. At the moment, his sister, Vera, calls him, but the phone isn’t answered until Todd gets back into his car, soaking wet, and answers the phone, telling his sister that everything is okay. Todd then goes back outside in the pouring rain for a moment. At that instant, Indy looks back from the front passenger seat of the car and sees two eyes staring at him. The scene stays for five to ten seconds before returning to Todd as they get back into the car and leave. This left me feeling suspicious of what was going to happen next. 

Then, Todd drives himself and Indy to their house, which stands alone and was where Todd’s grandfather lived. As Todd walks into the house, there is a suspicion that something may happen, but nothing does. However, upon entering his basement, Todd smells something unpleasant. 

Throughout the movie, a predictable recurring pattern occurs where something builds up only to come back down shortly after, making the movie at times seem boring.  One example is when Todd leaves Indy at the house alone; at that point in the movie, it seemed something might attack Indy, but nothing does. Instead, everything remains normal until Todd walks back into the house, where there is an unusual tone in his voice and something seems off. In a tense moment, Todd walks up the stairs, but something creeps alongside him. At the last minute, though, the person who walks into Todd’s bedroom is Todd himself, not something else. Todd then lies down on his bed, covered in scratches. Indy tries to cheer him up, but Todd is not in a good mood and asks Indy to leave at least two to three times before he does. 

Then there is a scene of Todd putting his head to a door in the house, with blood all over it. At that moment in the movie, I thought Todd might have killed somebody and was trying to hide it. Todd then proceeds to go to the doctor and ends up getting mad at them because they can’t help. 

At the end of the movie, Indy leaves the house and tries to escape to save Todd. The attempt is unsuccessful, though, and Indy ends up being chained up in the middle of the night as something attacks him. Then, Todd is seen telling Indy to stay where he was. As Todd goes back into the house, it looks like he could be plotting to kill Indy or somebody else. At this point, I still didn’t have a clear picture of what was happening with Todd, and the movie seemed incomplete. 

In one of the last scenes in the movie, everything comes together as Todd and Indy are together, Todd tells Indy that he was a good dog, but couldn’t save him. That’s when it all hit me that the whole movie was about Todd fighting himself; no person was attacking him, even though it was mentioned a few times that Todd’s grandfather lived in the house, and it could be haunted. Even though this was a deep part of the movie, I felt like I wasted my time watching it because, in the end, all the suspicion and drama added up to nothing except Todd fighting himself. 

Overall, I didn’t like the movie a lot; it felt kind of mysterious but never added up to anything. The movie also never showed Todd’s face until towards the end. There was a lot of suspense, but nothing came together until the very end of the movie. I don’t recommend it to many people; the movie made me bored and tired, and it is a waste of time for anyone wanting to see something exciting. I would recommend this movie to anybody who likes to see something about internal conflict and personal stories. However, this movie wasn’t for me.