The Horror Show
Good Boy
by Tyler MacIntyre
Good Boy is the June 2020 installment of Hulu’s Original Into the Dark series by Blumehouse Television. While most of the early installments were holiday themed horror situations, the later ones have started getting away from this. While these are listed as TV shows, they truly are full length, stand-alone movies.
Good Boy centers on Maggie, who was a journalist at a local newspaper until they decided to go digital and make all of their reporters freelance. This puts Maggie under a great deal of stress since she no longer has a guaranteed source of income. Her boss encourages her to adopt an emotional support dog to help her deal with the situation, so off to the shelter she goes. Walking through the shelter, she passes by all of the larger dogs and finally sees Reuben, a small, seemingly timid dog that she thinks will be just perfect for her.
Reuben is not your ordinary support dog, though. Whenever Maggie seems stressed or anxious, the source of that stress is mysteriously mauled to death by some kind of unknown, large animal. As Maggie becomes more confident, she decides to pursue a relationship and in-vitro fertilization to have a child. Things quickly go downhill as Maggie becomes more codependent on her relationship with Reuben over anything else in her life. What will she do when she figures out what is truly happening to the people in her life that cause her distress?
Maggie is portrayed as very weak and timid, someone that typically gets taken advantage of and we see examples of this throughout the beginning of the movie. As events progress, Maggie should quickly realize what is happening, but she’s either oblivious or intentionally ignoring what’s right in front of her. As her confidence builds, so does her dependency on Reuben. When she does start to suspect things and gets some unusual information from the veterinarian, her second thoughts are soon turned around.
While we never fully understand what Reuben truly is and how he is tied to Maggie and her anxieties, Good Boy is an enjoyable installment to the series and a different take on a creature horror story; one I recommend. While none of the Into The Dark installments are cinematic masterpieces, they are fun movies and most of them are worth a watch.
Lisa Forlow, HMS
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