Dust Bunny Review: There’s Something in the Floor

Bryan Fuller’s Dust Bunny is an inventive and dark family “horror” movie that deserves to find a passionate audience.

Dust Bunny takes place in an unnamed American city at an undetermined time. It’s the sort of timeless story that blends a variety of costume styles, hairdos and set design from different times and places in order to develop a very particular atmosphere. Our protagonist is young Aurora (newcomer Sophie Sloan), a kid who lives with her foster parents in a seemingly normal flat, but who has trouble sleeping due to the “monster living under her bed”. Logically, her mum and dad think it’s all in her head, but it turns out said creature might be a bit more real than expected.

It’s because of her sleepless nights and the sudden disappearance of her parents that Aurora decides to hire her next-door neighbour (Mads Mikkelsen, of The Last Viking) to kill the monster. After all, she’s seen him get rid of a monster of his own one night after she followed him to a dark alley in Chinatown. But even if he doesn’t believe her stories, especially since the “creature” he supposedly slew was actually a group of criminals he was hired to dispose of, he decides to listen to her. And it’s after checking the kid’s home that he realises she might be the target of bad people looking for him, and that local criminal Laverne (Sigourney Weaver, of Avatar: The Way of Water) might be behind it all. Thus, he decides to help Aurora, even if he doesn’t really believe in monsters under the floorboards.

Tone-wise, Dust Bunny reminded me of the kind of family adventures from the eighties that weren’t afraid of being a bit violent and dealing with slightly mature themes: movies like Gremlins or even The Goonies. Because, despite having a kid protagonist and dealing with imaginary (and not-so-imaginary) monsters, Dust Bunny is a rather violent picture, as it includes shootouts, unexpected deaths and of course, characters being eaten by a bunny-looking giant creature. It’s all pretty intense and not suitable for very small children. Teens and preteens, though, might get a kick out of what Dust Bunny offers.

Elsewhere, the film manages to convey some interesting themes. The interactions between Mikkelsen’s hitman and Sloan’s Aurora, for example, are particularly compelling thanks to the chemistry between the former and the latter, and are all about the contrast between innocence and world-weariness; between kids who still believe in imagination and otherworldly evil, and adults who have stopped believing and are more concerned with their “real” problems. In the end, the hitman admits that adults are as constantly afraid as kids, the only difference being that their fears are rooted in more mature stuff.

Additionally, if Dust Bunny is telling us something with the literalisation of a metaphorical Monster Under the Bed, it is that every person has to carry their own fears with them, accept them, and even use them against bad people if necessary. It’s the kind of message one doesn’t see too often in family pictures, and that should prove valuable to the movie’s audience members. In the end, Fuller’s first movie seems to be saying that fear is okay; that wishing something (especially if it’s a bit mean-spirited) has its consequences, and that kids’ fears are as valid and horrifying as the ones adults have, even if they might appear a bit illogical at first.

Visually, Dust Bunny proves to be quite the stunner… for the most part. Nicole Hirsch Whitaker’s cinematography is inventive and colourful, making use of intriguing techniques such as split-diopter shots (a favourite of mine) and blurry edges that give the movie an almost surreal and dreamlike look. Moreover, Dust Bunny has been shot in the unusual aspect ratio of 3.00:1, which is extremely wide and vertically claustrophobic. This is perfect for a film in which characters are constantly trying to get off the floor and escape from an unseen creature. Jeremy Reed’s production design is impeccable and extremely detailed, mixing all sorts of styles and turning Aurora and the hitman’s building into a character all of its own. Unfortunately, visual effects are a mixed bag, especially when the monster is (inevitably) introduced via wonky CGI. It’s not horrible, nor does it ruin the overall experience, but it’s certainly noticeable.

Dust Bunny is one of the most original and surreal experiences you can have at the cinema this year. It’s certainly different to any other family picture that’s been commercially released in the last few months. By mixing different visual styles and genres and setting it all in a timeless and colourful city, the film manages to convey different interesting themes about the importance of fear, friendship and imagination. And it does so through a clever narrative that’s quite compelling and exciting and occasionally frightening. Yes, Dust Bunny is a little too violent and dark for the mainstream, but I’m sure it’s eventually going to find its audience. And who knows, it might even turn into a new and eccentric family classic.

Dust Bunny will be released in US theatres on December 12, 2025.