If your four -legged friends stare into empty rooms for a long time or suddenly bark for without any apparent reason, many dog owners quickly give up puzzles. Is your pet just a bit weird – or does it have a sixth sense and can feel and perceive things that remain hidden? At the beginning of the horror thriller “Poltergeist” (1982), for example, with exemplary visual storytelling (note how long the camera persists and that faces of insignificant figures are not visible), all members of the Freeling family are presented with a nightly tour of their Golden Retrievers E. Buzz, before he later realizes that something in the new domicil Not true.
Ben Leonberg saw the classic a good 100 times at his own statements – and was primarily taken with the role of the four -legged friend. After filming his ironic horror short film “Dead Head” from the perspective of a separated zombie head lying on the hayloft, the Genreaffine filmmaker developed another idea for an original narrative perspective for his first full-length feature film-and also implemented it directly with his young dog called Indy. The horror thriller “Good Boy – Trust his Instincts” is consistently told from the four -legged friend's point of view, which gives the atmospheric opening film of this year's Fantasy Film Festival an unexpected emotional dimension.
Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever Indy plays the human staff with ease on the wall.
The health -stricken Todd (Shane Jensen) is saved by his girlfriend Vera (Arielle Friedman) just in time. As a recovery, the young man decides to temporarily move into the remote house of his late grandfather together with his loyal dog. However, the animal quickly notices that there is a threatening dark shape that is targeting him and his master …
Cameraman Wade Grebnoel has installed his camera extremely deeply-and encounters the animal protagonist not only in scenes from the ridge-person perspective and in truly creepy, symbolism charged nightmare sequences in the literal sense. The old, creaking house with its old furniture is captured in permanent undersight, which causes plenty of anxiety due to large and sometimes crooked rooms alone. The human protagonists, through whose few, brittle dialogues, only vaguely open up the background of the haunted are rarely seen in the picture. A home video of Todd's grandfather and pregnant pregnant with the gray in the basement, which flickered shortly over the tube TV, let the horror thriller briefly turn towards “Dance of Teufel” (1981). But that reveals itself as a cleverly false track.
The dog is by far the best actor
The main animal actor literally plays the pale two -legged friends on the wall. Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever Indy shows an impressively versatile facial mimic between curious sniffing, expectant stars, expectant stare, frightened worries about his master and pure panic, for example, when he escapes the stairs upstream in front of a sneaking. Heart.
This is the result of hard work: Since the four -legged protagonist was of course not quite as susceptible to directing instructions such as his two -legged counterparts, director Leonberg had to take what he could get from him through dog training and for a few treats presented next to the camera. The filming of his debut work went over 400 days (!) To three years.
Image 2: What is in front of you in the remote, consistently dark -lit house of his master to death?
Leonberg also proves to be an excellent film craftsman: the foggy forest, the indispensable shear weather and the (sometimes a bit badly) dimed-up house ensure extremely atmospheric scary mood, to which the threatening, rumbling soundscape with a drum. Sam Boase-Miller significantly contributes. Even if the shadows are wearing a bit in the background as a tension driver, he proves confidently with a few precise jumpscares that he knows how to drive up the audience's pulse.
Conclusion: “Good Boy” mercilessly pulls his concept to tell a horror film from the perspective of a dog. The main animal actor gets a sympathizer – while the human actors and the few dialogues weaken somewhat. Nevertheless, he has succeeded in an effective debut, staged at just 73 minutes.