Good Boy - Can a horror film be charming and sweet?
Cute, sweet, heart warming and charming, these are not typically words that you would use to describe a horror film, in fact, I have scoured through the archives of the eleventy and a half gazillion horror movie reviews that I have written and I have never ever described a film as “full of heart”, unless of course you count Return of the Living Dead 3 but I digress.
For the first time in the history of the universe I am going to refer to a horror movie as “sweet” in fact, I had this smug little smile on my face the whole time I watched this movie like I was watching Homeward Bound and not a violent gory film where at least three people get brutally disemboweled on screen.
Okay, deep breath.
The June entry into Blumhouse and Hulu’s Into the Dark series, Good Boy, is a sweet, heart felt and charming movie.
Now let me explain…
Directed by Tyler McIntyre (Tragedy Girls) the film follows the almost 40 year old Maggie (Judy Greer) as she navigates the treacherous waters of online dating and the imminent dread that is the ticker of mother nature's biological clock. You see, Maggie really, really wants to settle down and have kids but online dating in an absolute shit show. The men she meets on the dating app are her age, but they have no regard for the fact that she is almost at the age where she will no longer be able to have children. After a horrible first date, she takes matters into her own hands and decides to go to the fertility clinic to freeze her eggs where she is met with a tremendously crushing cost, almost twenty thousand total. She then finds out that the small newspaper she is working for is going digital and there will be cuts. Bundle this all together with a chance encounter with a girl she used to babysit who is now a grown woman who is getting married and having kids of her own, everything Maggie always wanted, and you have the makings of a mental break. This ever compiling anguish, she decides to get an emotional support dog, and that's when everything gets weird.
The writing on this one is absolutely amazing and the execution of the story will definitely almost make you cry. I mean, I didn’t cry because I'm super manly and stuff, but it will, for other people, totally not me, bring a tear to your eye. You really feel for Maggie as her doctor tells her basically it’s now or never if she ever wants to have children and how women her age just assume she has children and she just has to grin and hold in all that pain of not having a child and the possibility that she never will. Not to get personal but I am as virile as a musk oxen, I have four kids of my own and you can't say BABY 3 times in a row in my house without one just appearing like the goddamn Candyman, but I have close friends who have had trouble getting pregnant and I can tell you the pain is very real for them and the way the creative team expresses this on film is absolutely beautiful. Bravo to the writers and director but most importantly to Judy Greer who almost...made some other people, not me, cry.
Maggie decides to pick up a dog from the local pound to use as an emotional support animal and she picks this cute little rascal of a mutt that she names Rueben after the dog mysteriously eats her whole Reuben sandwich one night. Everything is good and the movie really hits you in the feels as Maggie seems to grow happier and happier with her little fur baby, but there is something different about Rueben, something that Maggie can’t explain. One day at doggie yoga in the park all the other dogs start barking at Reuben, they smell something is wrong with their doggie sixth sense. A few days later she goes on a date with a creeper who aggressively tries to get in her pants who mysteriously ends up dead and Reuben ends up covered in blood.
Maggie thinks nothing of it until little Reuben rips out her landlord's guts and murders her boss, played by Steve Guttenberg. Even then the dog’s violence isn't overly concerning to her. After all, her landlord was rude and nosey, her boss was an absolute creep and his death meant a promotion for her which in turn means she has enough money to freeze her eggs. Her concerns only grow as she meets a cute guy and starts to feel like she doesn’t need her emotional support dog anymore. Her life begins to normalize, her future looks bright but what is she going to do with her mutant killer dog? Is her cute cop boyfriend going to somehow link the murders of her bad date, boss and landlord to her? Those spoilers, I will keep to myself and advocate that you watch this film.
I often proclaim that movies are “The Best Horror Film of the Year” but I really feel it with this one. This is an expertly crafted film with superior acting by absolute veterans of cinema. A heartfelt and emotional story that elevates this film beyond the average creature feature. Good Boy is more of a character study of Maggie and how she deals with depression and less of a cheap killer dog film. Don’t get me wrong, this one is very much a gore heavy cheap killer dog film when it wants to be, but it does so in perfect moderation.
5 out of 5 overall and definitely one of the best Into the Dark films if not one of the best of the year. Check it out now streaming exclusively on Hulu.
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