Good Boy Is Finally Coming to Shudder — Here’s When You Can Stream It

I love a good haunted house. I did not expect the best new one to be told by the family dog. But here we are: Good Boy is finally headed to Shudder, and yes, the canine is the lead.

TL;DR and how to watch

• Streaming: Friday, November 21 on Shudder (U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland, Australia, New Zealand)
• Theatrical: Wide release on October 3 (via Shudder and Independent Film Company)
• Digital: Dropped a couple of weeks after theaters
• Rating: PG-13 for terror, bloody images, and strong language
• Who made it: Written and directed by Ben Leonberg, co-written with Alex Cannon
• Who is in it: Larry Fessenden (Blackout), Stuart Rudin (The Silence of the Lambs), and Leonberg’s dog Indy as the star
• Early verdict: JoBlo critic Tyler Nichols gave it a 7/10

The hook

Good Boy is a supernatural thriller that keeps the usual creaks and whispers but flips the perspective. The story plays out through the eyes of Indy, a middle-aged retriever who relocates with his human, Todd, from the city to a long-empty home in the country. From minute one, Indy is not vibing with the house. He senses things we can’t, tracks footprints that don’t exist, gets warnings from a spectral dog, and catches flashes of whatever awful thing happened to the last person who lived there.

Then it gets gnarlier. Something in the house starts to work on Todd, and Indy has to push back against whatever is trying to drag his best friend toward the afterlife. It’s a simple premise, but the dog POV makes it feel fresh and oddly emotional.

How they pulled this off (and why it feels so authentic)

This is one of those behind-the-scenes stories that sounds made up but isn’t. Leonberg and his wife, producer Kari Fischer, literally turned their own home into the set and worked around Indy’s schedule because he isn’t a trained animal actor. The production stretched over years, with 400 days of filming dedicated to the dog’s performance.

"400 days and a whole lot of patience."

The result is that Indy doesn’t act like a movie dog; he acts like a dog. That realism is the movie’s secret weapon.

Meet the star

Indy is a 35-pound retriever whose priorities are refreshingly straightforward: fetch, food, then his people (Ben and Kari). Special skills include unearthing tennis balls and staring into your soul exactly when you’re about to fill his bowl. Good Boy is his feature debut, following a short film of the same name.

The human element

Alongside Indy, the film features genre staple Larry Fessenden and Stuart Rudin, with Leonberg and Alex Cannon handling the script. The tone lands in that PG-13 sweet spot: plenty of dread and a few gnarly images, but it’s more atmospheric than splattery.

Bottom line: if you’re into haunted houses and want a new angle on familiar scares, mark November 21. And if you’re a dog person, prepare to get a little too invested in a retriever trying to save his guy.