The following contains spoilers for Good BoyGood Boy‘s ambiguous enтιтy and what it wants from Todd are the scary core of an otherwise surprisingly emotional horror movie. Ben Leonberg’s directorial debut focuses on a man who moves into his deceased Grandfather’s remote home alongside his loyal dog, Indy. The resulting scary story is told from Indy’s perspective, adding a layer of ambiguity to everything.

This extends to the mysterious monster in the house, a dark being capable of moving through shadows and affecting the material world. The enтιтy never gets a full explanation, but Todd’s final fate and the overall themes of the film lay the ground for a pretty clear metaphor for this tragic story of a dog and his person.

Why Todd Had To Die In Good Boy

Todd’s demise is the big emotional turn of Good Boy, serving as the key to the film’s central metaphor. There are several hints throughout Good Boy that Todd is seriously ill. The film opens with Indy seemingly noticing something in Todd’s apartment while he suffers from an ultimately unexplained seizure.

A visit to the doctor’s office confirms that Todd developed a fatal malady that medicine can’t combat. It’s implied that whatever enтιтy was in the house before and seemingly claimed Todd’s grandfather was due to a similar disease. Although the film presents their downward spirals as the result of a possession, it’s just as likely the illness is taking over.

It adds a metaphorical layer to the haunting, with the distant and deteriorating Todd coming across as a haunted shell of what he once was to Indy (and by extension, the audience). Ultimately, Todd succumbs to whatever malady is inflicting him, whether that be a genuine malevolent enтιтy or just a grim personification of a fatal disease.

Todd’s death was inevitable, and that’s key to the themes of Good Boy. The movie leaves many elements of the world at large ambiguous, reflecting the natural perspective of an animal. The film reflects this limited understanding by potentially imagining much of the haunting as a metaphor for Todd’s illness.

Ultimately, even his spirit has to move on. Dragged into the cave in the basement by the enтιтy, Todd is briefly saved by Indy. However, Todd recognizes what happened, and tells him that he can’t follow him. This leads to Todd’s final death, but also seems to help ensure that Indy is willing to move on and escape the house.

Why The Enтιтy Haunted Indy & Todd

The enтιтy haunting Indy and Todd in Good Boy is left very ambiguous in the film, with no clear sign or explanation of its true nature. This leaves the creature to be very open to interpretation. There are two primary interpretations of the enтιтy and why it takes Todd, with both underlining the real meaning of the film.

In one interpretation of the enтιтy, it truly is a supernatural force at play. The enтιтy is seen on-screen multiple times and seems to be following and increasingly affecting Todd. Todd seems fully unaware of this, but Indy’s investigation around the house and encounter with the spirit of the previous dog that lived here suggest something mystical at play.

It would explain why the house has a mysterious and almost mythical cave in the basement, a far cry from the more conventional rural landscape of the film. It’s possible that the house had unleashed something onto the family that had been there for generations, potentially taking a sH๏τ at finishing off the bloodline once and for all with Todd.

However, it’s also very easy to interpret the enтιтy as just a visual metaphor for death as a concept, something that Indy constructs as a means of understanding what’s happening to his beloved Todd. The enтιтy doesn’t seem to actually be threatening to Indy, only separating them.

The enтιтy’s greatest danger to Indy comes when it tries to drag him into a dog house. However, the enтιтy does nothing to Indy in terms of permanent damage and repeatedly spares the dog’s life. The dog that died there previously is suggested to have starved near the cave because it couldn’t move on.

If the enтιтy is just a vision of death coming to claim Todd, then Good Boy‘s haunting takes on a more emotional meaning. However, the actual supernatural enтιтy explains some of the film’s more ambiguous and mysterious turns. Either way, both interpretations lead to the same emotional takeaway.

The Real Meaning Of Good Boy

Good Boy is a movie about loss and mourning, told from the perspective of a loyal dog. While Indy loves Todd, it’s also clear that Indy can’t do anything to save him. All of Indy’s warnings are ignored, just as Todd seemed to brush off signs his health was at risk.

Indy is unable to save the day, regardless of whether or not it’s something supernatural is coming for Todd. The film reaffirms how important it is to the dog to help his person, and how tragic it is when he can’t. There’s an inevitable sense of danger to the enтιтy that reinforces the idea that it’s simply death at work.

Good Boy never undercuts that love between Todd and Indy. Todd clearly cares about the dog, his worst moments being when the sickness or possession force him to lash out at Indy. This makes his final message to Indy, that he can’t save him, all the sadder. However, it’s also key to Indy being able to survive the film.

When Todd’s sister arrives in the final moments of Good Boy and discovers what happened to Todd, she also opens the basement and finds Indy. Although he’s tempted to remain and wait for Todd to return (which is implied to have led to the grim fate of the previous dog), Indy follows his last order and moves on.

This leads to the somber credits, where Indy looks out the window as Todd’s sister drives them home. It’s a sad ending, but one that suggests Indy will live on and even potentially move on after the death of Todd. It gives the haunting of Good Boy a real emotional core that makes it stand out from other ghost stories.