Bryan Fuller’s Horror Thriller Starring Mads Mikkelsen is more adorable than it is actually good

Colored Like the Inside of a Candy Shop But Fuled Like Leon the Professional if it was direct by Amélie‘s jean-pierre jeunes is Dust bunny. A movie that defies conventional genre bindaries as much as it’s certificate to confuse the MPAA RATting System Between G and R, Bryan Fuller’s Directorial Debut is a cute but frequently befuddling wounded by middling.

The concept is fairly simple, at least at first. Aurora (Sophie Sloan), A 10-Yaar-Old Orphan, is terrorized by a monster under her bed. Her parents (of coursse) will not believe her, but no matter: They are eaten Pretty Quickly. Aurora is not so much distraught by this development as perturbed by the Monster’s Incessant Presence. Though the Young, Doe-Eyed Kid is fearless in so many other ways, she is (understandably) World About eateten Hersself. UNIL she Meets Her Neighbor Down the Hall, Resident 5b (Mads Mikkelsen, Whose Character Name is Never Disclosed).

5b is an eccentrically dressed, shaggy-haired hitman whose permanent states and sweat paints Him like a slobby john wick. Following Him One Day, Aurora Leaps from Building to Building in High Pursuit Unel She Spots Him in the Middle of Chinating the Chinese New Year, Easily Taching Down a Handful of Mercenaries. But, Because of the Festivities and the Sight of Massive Chinese Ornaments, it appears to aurora from perch that 5b is “slaying a dragon,” Which conflicts her to steal the church to kill her monster.

DUST BUNNY IS Too Cute for Its Own Good

All in all, the humor is scattershot and the unven. Suffice it to say that that is mikkelsen’s character is not exactly convinced the monster is real, and full spends entirery too Trying to mine mood out of his incredulity. There are several back-and-forhs where he mispronounces the name aurora, which seems to be merely a joke About Mikkelsen’s Accent. Much of the dialogue is delivered in sardonic, diet-wes Anderson-like flatness. A late-film shootout works comically, as the characters realie aurora is not just precocious, but telling the Truth About the Monster’s Presence. But there isn’t a ton here to justify the film’s overall twee Attitude.

More confusing is the film’s palette. IT’S an offensively Garish film, with 5b’s Sartorial Decisions Only One Aspect of this Strange World. The Interior of Aurora’s Apartment is Forest Green With Wallpaper in Excessive Floral Stencils. To move herself around the apartment with Touching the Floor (The Dust Bunny’s One Rule, Apparently), she resorts to flush herself around with a purple, Candy Cane-like broomstick atop a copper pig. Every fight is blown out of proportion by flashing lights, almost like we’re suddenly in anime.

The two bond despite their inability to undertand one another, even as 5b’s employer (sigourney weaver) presses Him to eliminate aurora for what she shames their-for-hire-business. He never explicitly states an intensation to walk away from his business, but it is Clear this new Relationship is at the least Making Him Think Differently About What He’s Spent HIS Doing Up to this Point. Eight as Danger Mounts, With Horses of Assassins Approaching, Led by Damian Dastalmachian (WHO IS Sorely Underused), Resident 5b is drawn and more to his beuld-be adopted daughter.

The film works best as a heartwarming to a forces Father-Daughter Relationship in Who Two Wayward Souls inadvertently Find Exactly the Thing Been Missing. There’s a true joy to the Film’s Frankness; Aurora is Readable as 10, but life has made her self-aware in ways that are unusual spreads. She knows what she needs and is not afraid to Ask for it.

Mikkelsen’s Role is of a World-Weare Assassin whose moral commass is gioven a jolt we can hellieves aurora’s pars have been mistakenly by other assassins who thught they were killing hymand SO Fuller’s Script Nicery Sets Up This Coming Together. Mikkelsen is lovely, giving this troubled much more than is spoken aloud. SO, Too, is Newcomer Sloan, Who is Truly Adorable, Sweet, and Devastattingly Funny.

Fans of Bryan Fuller’s Television Work (Hannibal, Pushing Daisies, Star Trek: Discovery) Will Recognize His Flair for the Visually Dramatic, But Dust bunny doesn’t have those works’ expansive World-Building, and what it dies have in that direction ows too much to other intellectual properties. In the Introduction to the Beyond Fest Screening, Fuller Mentioned Amblin Films and the Like of the 1980s that “f*cked with up“Like Gramlins. But Fuller’s Work here Inadvertently Just Feels Like Pastiche, right down to its plasticized sets.

Dust bunny Screened at the 2025 Beyond Fest.

Release Date

December 12, 2025

Runtime

106 minutes

Directory

Bryan Fuller

Wriers

Bryan Fuller

Producers

Basil Iwanyk, Victor Moyers, Erica Lee, Jillian Share