Good Boy’s Twisted Ending Explained: The Truth Behind Todd and Indy’s Fates

Here’s the deal with Good Boy: it’s a 2025 horror-thriller about a guy and his dog moving into grandpa’s place, and it ends in a way that’s simple on the surface and pretty loaded underneath. It’s also writer-director Ben Leonberg’s first feature, and yes, the dog is actually the co-lead.

The setup

Todd (played by Shane Jensen) and his Nova Scotia Duck Tolling retriever, Indy (played by, well, Indy), settle into Todd’s late grandfather’s home. A dark presence makes itself known. The movie never spells out exactly what that entity is or what it wants, which is intentional. The hauntings escalate, and Indy keeps trying to protect Todd because he’s the only one who really sees what’s happening.

So... do Todd and Indy die?

Todd does. Indy doesn’t.

The film reveals that Todd is living with a fatal illness that can’t be cured. That turns everything we’ve seen into a two-track story: on one side, there’s a supernatural antagonist; on the other, there’s a disease that’s just as unstoppable. By the end, Todd is dragged into the basement and tells Indy he can’t come with him. He dies down there—whether you read it as succumbing to the illness, to a possession, or some blend of both is up to you. The movie deliberately leaves that line blurry.

The metaphor that actually lands

The cleaner read is from Indy’s point of view. The entity functions like a manifestation of Todd’s sickness as the dog experiences it. That idea tracks with how the entity behaves: it doesn’t do any major harm to Indy and ultimately lets him live. The horror is less about a monster and more about a pet trying to make sense of his human slipping away. It’s a surprisingly tender angle for a haunted-house movie, and it works.

Where everyone ends up

• Todd: dead by the end, after being dragged to the basement; cause left intentionally ambiguous (illness vs. possession).
• Indy: survives, listens to Todd’s final instruction not to follow, and moves on.
• The grandfather’s dog: a grim cautionary tale from the past, implied to have starved near the cave.
• Vera (Todd’s sister): arrives after everything, pieces together what happened, and drives Indy away from the house.

The final beat

The last image is Indy looking out the window while Vera drives them home. It mirrors the movie’s whole approach: the human story is tragic, but the dog’s story is about choosing to keep going. That’s the heartstring pull, and it doesn’t feel cheap.

A little inside baseball

For a debut, Leonberg leans hard into perspective. Letting a Toller share top billing and treating the haunting as a dog’s-eye metaphor gives the ending its power. The entity never needs a lore dump because the movie isn’t actually about vanquishing it—it’s about a goodbye.