Parents' Guide to Good Boy

Due to its nature, this experimental horror movie sometimes obscures its narrative thread, but it's so inventive and moving that it's very much worth a look, especially for dog lovers. The directing debut of Ben Leonberg—who cast his own Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever, Indy, as the star—Good Boy is filmed entirely from the pooch's perspective. Viewers rarely see the human characters' faces, and their dialogue, which might explain exactly what's going on, is often deliberately muffled or buried. That can be a little frustrating when you lose the thread of the story, but the approach also makes perfect sense. If we were a dog, we wouldn't fully understand the events, either; we'd only have our senses.

Indy is as good a dog actor as has ever been seen on the screen. Rather than being cute and performing tricks or daring rescues, his job is to be concerned and sometimes scared, and he achieves these emotions expertly. It's difficult not to be moved by his plight. Legend has it that Good Boy took three years to shoot, even at a slim 73 minutes, and it's hard not to imagine that there were likely many stumbling blocks along the way. But the finished movie is fluid and professional, showing no signs of struggle. (Leonberg was smart to cast experimental horror veteran Fessenden as the grandpa; he might have been a good resource.) And, since dog lovers will be wondering—and the answer is likely a make-or-break proposition—we will tell you (spoiler alert!): Indy makes it safely to the end.