A horror pic told from the perspective of a heroic pooch, Good Boy premiered its official trailer \u2014 and we\u2019d argue that perhaps Best Boy is a more apt title. In the frightening first-look clip, a caring canine displays fear, worry and care with aptly timed barks and whines as he attempts to protect his loved ones.<\/p>\n
Per the logline for the supernatural thriller from AMC Networks\u2019 IFC Films (now rebranded to Independent Film Company<\/a>), \u201cA loyal dog moves to a rural family home with his owner Todd, only to discover supernatural forces lurking in the shadows. As dark entities threaten his human companion, the brave pup must fight to protect the one he loves most.\u201d<\/p>\n More from Deadline<\/strong><\/p>\n Helmed by Ben Leonberg, who co-wrote alongside scribe Alex Cannon, the movie aims to flip the script on the haunted house genre, perhaps bringing to mind another recent entry, Steven Soderbergh\u2019s Presence (2024), a psychological thriller told from the eyes of a watchful, eerie home.<\/p>\n Starring Larry Fessenden, Arielle Friedman, Shane Jensen, Anya Krawcheck, Stuart Rudin and Leonberg\u2019s trusted puppy Indy, the project was acquired by Shudder for distribution\u00a0in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Ireland, Australia and New Zealand following its premiere at\u00a0SXSW<\/a>\u00a0in March, as Deadline previously reported exclusively<\/a>.<\/p>\n Following warm reception at its sold-out premiere at SXSW (and the \u201cHowl of Fame\u201d award for Best Canine Performance for Indy),\u00a0Good Boy\u00a0continued on the festival circuit at Overlook Film Festival in New Orleans, where it expanded from one to three screens to satisfy audience demand, earning an honorable mention for Scariest Feature Film. The film was also screened at Calgary Underground Film Festival.<\/p>\n \u201cI think everybody who has had a pet has wondered or maybe worried why their dog was barking at nothing or staring at empty corners. We kind of wanted to explore that as just a core engine of the movie and spin it into a haunted house movie,\u201d Leonberg told Deadline at SXSW Studio<\/a>. \u201cThey say don\u2019t work with kids or animals for a reason \u2026 the solution to that challenge was to build a production entirely around him.\u201d<\/p>\n As such, Leonberg and his wife Kari Fischer, who also served as producer, adapted their own home and acted as stand-ins for three years to accommodate Indy\u2019s production schedule. In all, production tallied 400 days and demanded a lot of patience, given the fact that Indy is not a trained animal actor; the end result is what Deadline\u2019s Katie Campione described as an \u201cincredibly realistic and haunting portrayal of a dog\u2019s reaction to his house taking on a life of its own.\u201d<\/p>\n [youtube https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=q4-CRkd_74g?version=3&enablejsapi=1&origin=https:\/\/deadline.com&rel=1&showsearch=0&showinfo=1&iv_load_policy=1&fs=1&hl=en-US&autohide=2&wmode=transparent&w=600&h=338]<\/p>\n Sign up for Deadline’s Newsletter<\/a>. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook<\/a>, Twitter<\/a>, and Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source ca.news.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A horror pic told from the perspective of a heroic pooch, Good Boy premiered its official trailer \u2014 and we\u2019d argue that perhaps Best Boy is a more apt title. In the frightening first-look clip, a caring canine displays fear, worry and care with aptly timed barks and whines as he attempts to protect his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1967792,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25173],"tags":[348854],"class_list":["post-1967791","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artists","tag-ifc-films"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/IFC-Films-Horror-Pic-Debuts-Frightening-First-Look-From-Brave.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1967791","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1967791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1967791\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1967792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1967791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1967791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1967791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}