The canine star of Good Boy did not know he was in a horror movie

American director Ben Leonberg wants to make sure that when discussing the lead actor in Good Boy, there are quotes around the word “performance”.

- Esther Zuckerman

“I cannot stress enough that he does not know he is in a movie,” Leonberg said.

That is because the star of his horror movie is his dog, Indy, an eight-year-old Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever with reddish fur and a curious nose.

To be clear, Indy is not just in the film, but he is also the undisputed main character of this story about a pooch whose ailing owner moves to a creepy family home in the woods.

All the (living) human characters appear almost entirely in shadows. The audience sees the terror unfold entirely through Indy’s eyes as he senses a malevolent presence.

But Leonberg, 37, and his wife and producer Kari Fischer insisted that the production process was not scary for their pet.

In fact, the trick of the movie is that through cinematography, sound design and other cinematic tools, Leonberg is projecting a performance onto Indy, a turn that won him the inaugural Howl of Fame award at the South by Southwest film festival on March 12.

In a Critic’s Pick review for The New York Times, Erik Piepenburg wrote that Indy’s “soft eyes and remarkably focused demeanour channel joy, pathos and, most astonishingly, terror”, and added that the director and producer “should be proud: Their nepo baby actually deserves the acclaim”.

A LONG SHOOT

Good Boy, which will be showing in cinemas on Oct 30, was an experiment in film-making and dog ownership for Leonberg and Fischer. Making his feature film debut, Leonberg shot for more 400 days over three years while living with Indy in the North Jersey house that served as their main set.

Actors later provided voice-overs for the characters, but during principal photography, only Leonberg and Fischer – who appear as shadows - as well as Indy were involved in filming.