Ben Leonberg’s feature directorial debut Good Boy provides a riveting haunted house story from a completely unique perspective, a film-making trend that has been increasing in popularity. Starring the talented dog Indy in his on-screen debut, Good Boy breaks new ground in creative horror by chronicling the vicious haunting of a dying man and his dog entirely from the perspective of the dog.

As Hollywood has entered a new golden age of horror, an influx of new directors have sought to push the boundaries of the typical horror subgenres. The willingness to explore uncharted waters has yielded horror movies that stand toe-to-toe with the highest-rated movies of each year when it comes to quality storytelling and acting performances.

Good Boy may be the latest horror movie to explore a scary story from a unique point of view, but it’s far from the first. Unconventional protagonists have evolved into a staple of modern horror, often injecting life back into even the most played-out horror subgenres. We’ve broken down 11 of the very best from the last 20 years, each of which places the audience in the shoes of an unusual leading character.

11

Good Boy (2025)

One of the elements that makes Good Boy so riveting isn’t just the camera perspective of following around a dog, viewing the creepiest scenarios from lower than normal and moving quicker. It’s the fact that director Ben Leonberg juxtaposes what Indy sees versus what his owner sees.

It’s long been theorized that dogs have a sixth sense that allows them to interpret the world around them through a different lens than people. Scientifically, it’s the side effect of having far more acute smell and hearing abilities. Good Boy takes it to that extra dimension anyway by showing the evil enтιтy that haunts the house exclusively to Indy for most of the movie, ratcheting up the horror for the audience.

10

Teeth (2007)

The shockingly well-reviewed Teeth is technically a horror-comedy, but it’s played fairly straight despite its absurd premise. It’s a realistic depiction of the folk legend medical condition known as vagina dentata, which refers to a vagina that is ringed by death. The legendary implication is that intercourse with a woman with the condition will result in gruesome injury for the male partner, a concept that Teeth explores in detail.

Teeth‘s protagonist is a young woman with the aforementioned condition, making her simultaneously the heroine and the monster in the story. The narrative sees her evolve from a timid spokesperson for a Christian abstinence group to a self-ᴀssured crusader who uses her condition to deliver justice to men with evil intentions.

9

In A Violent Nature (2024)

While other movies have shown the viewpoint of a killer before, In a Violent Nature provided something truly unique by having the camera follow around a mute, monstrous, unᴅᴇᴀᴅ killer in the style of Jason Voorhees/Michael Myers. For almost its entire runtime, In a Violent Nature sticks with a killer named Johnny, as he exacts vengeance on a group of teens for the theft of a locket from his grave.

As the audience, we are meant to empathize with Johnny, whose childlike motivation and mind makes that a reasonable notion. It also provides a first-hand, uninterrupted view of some of the most brutal and graphic kills in recent memory, providing an interesting juxtaposition for the audience as we walk around the woods with Johnny.

8

Maniac (2012)

Franck Khalfoun’s Maniac uses perspective to great effect with its protagonist, a schizophrenic serial killer portrayed by Elijah Wood. The kicker is that the movie is sH๏τ from his character Frank’s literal point of view. The audience is in Frank’s shoes as he brutalizes and scalps women to recreate a specific image of his mother from mannequins; we only see Wood as Frank in reflections.

What the movie lacks in suspense (we know what’s coming at all times), it makes up for with sheer gore. From Frank’s eyes, we see each savage murder and gut-churningly detailed scalping up close and personal.

7

Companion (2025)

We are first introduced to Sophie Thatcher’s Iris as a young woman in a loving relationship, ready for a weekend at the lake with her boyfriend’s friends. That entire narrative changes quickly, as we learn that Iris is in fact an ultra-advanced companion robot, whose entire personality is controlled by an app from her boyfriend’s phone.

Over the course of the movie we discover that the humans around Iris, in particular her “boyfriend” Josh, are evil and cruel, while Iris is entirely a victim of Josh’s scheming and twisted desire for control. Once freed from his control and given full self-autonomy, we cheer along as Iris avenges Josh’s mistreatment of her and the others at the lakehouse who stood in his way.

6

Strange Darling (2023)

Strange Darling earned rave reviews for its non-linear method of storytelling, with the widespread warning to go into the movie with as little information as possible. That’s because the movie’s protagonist (Willa Fitzgerald), labeled only as “The Lady”, begins as a victim fleeing from a killer (Kyle Gallner) before the narrative reveals that she is in fact a serial killer known as “The Electric Lady”.

Director JT Mollner’s beautiful cinematography and incredibly clever story arrangement essentially shifts the hero based on which part of the story you’re watching. The central figure is always The Lady, but whether she is a victim, the hero, or a monster changes as the movie progresses.

5

Presence (2025)

Director Steven Soderbergh Sundance Film Festival submission Presence is as simple as they get: a family under pressure from various crises moves into a house inhabited by a mysterious invisible enтιтy. The hook is that we observe the entire movie from the first-hand perspective of the enтιтy, hiding in closets, floating objects around the room, and making noises as it does.

Presence ends with a clever twist, as the enтιтy’s idenтιтy is eventually revealed with a unique interpretation of how a house comes to be haunted. Right up until that point though, the movie leaves it to the audience to figure out the motivations of the enтιтy whose invisible skin they wear throughout its runtime.

4

Raw (2016)

The French body horror movie Raw is similar to Teeth in that the movie’s monster is in fact the protagonist, or rather what the protagonist evolves into. College freshman Justine enters veterinary school as a lifelong vegetarian, but after being forced to eat raw rabbit kidneys in a hazing ritual, she begins to crave human flesh.

While cannibalism is an oft-visited trope in horror (body horror in particular), Raw shows us the perspective of a young woman as she undergoes the process of changing into one. It’s an unusual point of view that helps Raw stand out in the body horror space.

3

Skinamarink (2022)

Skinamarink is among the more divisive horror movies in recent years, in that people either seem to love it or completely hate it. The dilemma draws from the movie’s perspective, which is extremely difficult to interpret; it’s told from the perspective of a small child, and seems to be incredibly unreliable. The all-dark setting certainly doesn’t help, as the children in the movie are trapped in a house with no doors or windows.

Seeing things from the perspective of a child that is bafflingly not terrified at various points of the movie is definitely uncommon, and Skinamarink‘s pitch-black, supernatural vibe makes it all the more vexing.

2

Saw X (2023)

After almost two decades of Tobin Bell’s John “Jigsaw” Kramer torturing and killing individuals he believes to be unworthy of the gift of life that he and his unborn child were denied, Saw X reintroduced John Kramer earlier on in his life before the events of the original Saw. At that time, he was a much more sympathetic character, as he was misled by a scam while seeking treatment for his terminal cancer.

Saw X making an established villain in John Kramer the true heroic protagonist is certainly unconventional, but it seems like it took a step down some fertile ground for storytelling. The Predator franchise is set to do something similar with Predator: Badlands in November 2025, pivoting the franchise’s ultra-lethal alien hunter from the enemy of humanity to the hero of its own story.