Daily Grindhouse | ‘GOOD BOY’ IS A DISTURBING, BLEAK SLOW-BURN HORROR FILM

Toco, a YouTuber from Japan, has spent around two million yen ($14,000 USD) to build an ultra-lifelike collie costume. The enigmatic cynophile’s content has mounted thousands of views. His profile handle is @I_want_to_be_an_animal. The canine costume is frightening accurate, from its lush, thick brown coat to its piqued, attentive ears. The only thing missing is a dog’s soulful, adoring eyes — something no human can replicate, and the first thing I noticed.

When the story ghosted through the news, a friend of mine pointed out that the costume was something out of a horror flick.

Appropriately enough, this chilling memory is what came to mind when viewing Viljar Bøe’s stylish 2022 film, GOOD BOY.

This harrowing Norwegian horror follows Sigrid (Katrine Lovise Øpstad Fredriksen), a happy-go-lucky university student who meets timid Christian (Gard Løkke) on a dating app. Christian’s striking, mild-mannered, generous, and doesn’t play games like so many men before him. Enticed by his distinctive nature, Sigrid goes home with him on the first date.

Christian lives alone in a sprawling, pristine country home. After a few dizzying glasses of red wine and a passionate night together, Sigrid is disturbed to learn that Christian does, in fact, not live alone. A grown man in a sweaty, poorly constructed dog suit and mask crawls around the corner to greet Sigrid the next morning at breakfast. The being looks upon the young woman with vacant eyes, sniffing her. Christian, straight-faced, introduces him as his dog, Frank. Seeing no evidence that he’s pranking her, Sigrid flees.

Sigrid’s roommate informs her that Christian is a multi-millionaire’s son, and she’d be a fool to stop seeing him. After all, everyone’s weird, and she needs to keep an open mind. Against her better judgment, Sigrid researches the bizarre world of dog play and why people pretend to be canines, trying to decipher the true relationship between Christian and the speechless man behind the mask.

Throughout the film’s first and second acts, Bøe masterfully keeps a steady pace and places us in Sigrid’s panicked internal dialogue — is Frank dangerous, or is Christian? Bøe slowly and continuously implements suffocating, claustrophobic little motifs into the narrative that, like our protagonist, we attempt to brush off. This dizzying paranoia haunts its audience throughout, creating a slow-burn that delivers a paralyzing sucker punch during the film’s well-placed reveal. The film’s cool, calming lighting only punctuates the uneasy feeling of impending terror.

Fredriksen and Løkke’s casting couldn’t be better. While these leads have tangible chemistry, their standalone performances are of note.

Fredriksen’s doleful eyes and emotional dedication create a remarkable, grounded performance as Sigrid. Løkke digs deep into his characters cool, complicated psyche — Christian is like the lovechild of Patrick Bateman of AMERICAN PSYCHO and Paul from FUNNY GAMES. Even the way he chews is enough to make skin crawl. There’s something so unnatural about him despite his classic, appealing visage, and I’d love to see him take on more horror roles.

The final act of GOOD BOY is where this bizarre horror flick loses traction. Though the movie’s reveal is executed well, the story begins to lose its roots and appears to scramble in an attempt to end with shock value. Characters lose their footing in both reasoning and reality, and unfortunately, it doesn’t come off as horrifying or realistic — just confusing.

While I understand where Bøe wanted to go with GOOD BOY’s finale, I was left with more questions than answers. The writing here could be fleshed out to create a more structured conclusion that packs an even bigger punch and tightens the storyline, the characters, and their choices.

GOOD BOY is a raw, brutal horror film that twists the knife in slowly. Effective and haunting, it’s bound to become a notable chiller. Bøe’s latest feature makes us think about the soul, the relationship between ourselves as humans, and with our furry companions — what separates a human from animal, and where is the boundary?

What makes us human?