And the award for the best dog acting at the Melbourne International Film Festival goes to Indy who played Indy in Good Boy!

My goodness I have never seen a dog carry the emotion and narrative of an entire film quite so well. It’s a fun concept for a horror film. We get everything from a dog level point of view, which means we don’t really see the faces of the people in his life. Indy’s owner is Todd (Shane Jensen), a man who is seriously ill and has a fractured relationship with his sister Vera (probably Anya Krawcheck, the IMDb credits are sub-par). We are not sure why but Todd seems to think that moving to his grandfather‘s abandoned and haunted cabin in the woods is a good choice.

Indy is already not sure that things are okay. He hears strange noises and sees dark shadows in corners and this escalates when they get to grandpa‘s house. He can see visions of grandpa‘s faithful dog, Rex, barking from the basement, and the shadowy figures begin to appear again.

I won’t tell you any more as plot is never a huge thing with horror films. Director Ben Leonberg does an impressive job at keeping, holding and building the tension throughout the film. It is such an interesting premise, because we all know how animals can seem to see things that aren’t there. It’s quite easy to imagine that there are ghosts or monsters that we can’t see.

Add to this the helplessness of animals who can’t communicate and have to do what they’re told. There are some good jump scares and the ending is perfectly acceptable, if a bit clichéd. Probably the only criticism I have is that the human acting is not so great. As we don’t really see Todd and Vera, it feels like we are just getting a dubbed voice over and it doesn’t quite hang together with the feel of the film. We do see grandpa, who’s played by Blackout director Larry Fessenden, although he doesn’t have much of a speaking part.

I would love to find out how they got Indy to play his part so well. It feels like you can see actual fear in his eyes, and he hits every mark, even seems to have his fur stand on end at certain scary moments.

I saw this in one of the comfy cinemas of MIFF, the newly renovated Hoyts cinema 10 with recliner seats. I was in a row with all of my friends with some chocolate to nibble on and really enjoyed the ride.