Dust Bunny Is A Monstrously Fun Dark Fantasy
Bryan Fuller makes the leap to the big screen with a delightful dark comedy.
There’s something in the floor. At least, that’s what young Aurora (Sophie Sloan) thinks is going bump in the night. Most kids are afraid of a monster lurking under their bed or within their closet, but in Dust Bunny — a delightful horror fantasy from Bryan Fuller — there may or may not be a monster lurking under the floor under Aurora’s bed. The problem is, no one she tells seems to believe her: not her caring yet oblivious parents, and definitely not the enigmatic stranger (Mads Mikkelsen) who’s only ever seen coming and going from Apartment 5B across the hall.
The question between what’s real, and what’s the product of an overblown imagination, dominates the push and pull in Dust Bunny. Aurora’s monster feels uncomfortably real. Even if it spends the majority of the film swathed in shadows, hiding behind doors or under floorboards, the terror it inflicts in its young lead is all too tangible. So is her hope of finally defeating the beast, even if it’s a bit misplaced. Aurora believes that her neighbor is a monster hunter: when she follows him out on the town one night, she watches him take down a group of hitmen hidden in a dragon costume. We know the truth, but to Aurora’s eyes, he’s the only person capable of destroying the cause of all her sleepless nights.
Crucially, Dust Bunny doesn’t force us to take one side over the other. This is a world where a network of spies and hitmen lurk in the shadows... but it’s also just as possible that monsters do too. Believing in both in half the fun, especially once Aurora solicits her neighbor’s services to murder the monster under her bed.
Dust Bunny marks Fuller’s first big-screen effort after decades of crafting dark fantasies on television. He draws inspiration from Amblin films like The Goonies or Gremlins in crafting yet another fairytale, but the fingerprints of something like Léon and John Wick are clearly felt, too. Those worlds collide with delightfully assured aplomb, anchored by a stellar cast and an intricate, lived-in world. Fuller wants audiences of all ages to enjoy this adventure, even if adults and kids might disagree on what’s really going on. That push and pull is embodied perfectly in Aurora’s rapport with her neighbor, whose own line of work has made him appropriately cynical.
Tenant 5B believes that there is a monster of a sort hunting Aurora; once her parents disappear, he assumes it’s a hitman who just got the wrong house. Aurora, meanwhile, insists her family “got got” by the beast that’s been taunting her. They may disagree on the cause, but both are on the same page about the danger encircling them. 5B becomes Aurora’s reluctant protector, determined to get to the bottom of this... mostly so he can say “I told you so.”
Dust Bunny tells a straightforward story, but Fuller cleverly complicates the proceedings with one monstrous reveal after the next. As Aurora becomes glued to her neighbor’s side, learning the ins and outs of assassination without batting an eye, we learn more about her troubled past. The parents we meet at the top of the film aren’t her real parents at all, but the latest in a long line of foster families who’ve disappeared one after the other. Aurora says they’ve all been eaten by the same monster, which has followed her relentlessly for as long as she can remember. 5B thinks that something else may be afoot, something that connects to a cabal of assassins. Aurora may be the true target of a much bigger conspiracy, not the recipient of some odd supernatural curse.
Sloan and Mikkelsen deliver a delightful take on spy thrillers like Léon.
5B’s search for the truth faces pushback from his handler, Laverne (a hilariously catty Sigourney Weaver), who’d rather he cut and run if his cover is well and truly blown. There’s also the little matter of that aforementioned cabal, whose ringleader (David Dastmalchian) has no qualms about going through Aurora to get what they want. Throw in a concerned agent from CPS (Sheila Atim, channeling Foxy Brown) who maybe knows more than she lets on, and Dust Bunny quickly spirals into the kind of madcap misadventure you’d sooner expect from Wes Anderson.
However frightening its monsters, fantastic or otherwise, Dust Bunny never lets go of its sense of whimsy. Each burst of bloodshed carries a whiff of pitch-black comedy that longtime fans of Fuller will welcome with open arms. The film is wildly entertaining — a fizzy, funny, and immaculately constructed fairytale from one of the most underrated storytellers in the game. Though it can get carried away with said story, laying the carnage and the visual gags on thick, it’s impossible not to get swept up alongside Fuller. His instincts translate well enough to the big screen, and it certainly helps that he’s reunited with some of his best collaborators, from food styled by Hannibal’s Janice Poon to a surprisingly tender performance from Hannibal himself. All told, it’s a promising pivot for Fuller, filling a hole that so many horror stories overlook.
