DUST BUNNY (2025)

Studio:   Lionsgate
Director: Bryan Fuller
Writer:   Bryan Fuller
Producer: Basil Iwanyk, Erica Lee, Bryan Fuller
Stars:    Mads Mikkelsen, Sophie Sloan, Sheila Atim, David Dastmalchian, Rebecca Henderson, Sigourney Weaver

Review Score:

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Summary:

An imaginative little girl tries hiring a hitman to kill a monster she believes hides under her bed and eats people.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Aurora’s foster mother and father ignore the girl’s claims that there is a monster, a sentient dust bunny with fangs, hiding under the floorboards beneath her bed. In time, the elusive creature grows to an enormous size and eats Aurora’s parents.

Aurora makes a wish on a firefly like it’s a shooting star. The firefly leads Aurora into following her intriguing neighbor from apartment 5B to Chinatown during the night. There, Aurora secretly spies 5B using elite assassin skills to execute multiple gangsters disguised beneath a Chinese dragon, which Aurora sees in silhouette as a real monster.

Aurora steals $327.42 in cash and coins from a church collection plate. She then puts the money in 5B’s mailbox along with a handwritten letter asking if she can hire him to kill the monster under her bed. Despite Aurora’s claim that a creature killed her parents, 5B tells the girl that monsters don’t exist, and insists her parents were probably killed by other assassins.

5B goes to a restaurant to meet his handler Laverne, who is later revealed to also be 5B’s mother. 5B tells his mother about Aurora’s situation, but Laverne is more concerned that the girl can identify 5B and knows what he does for a living.

Hearing the elevator in their apartment building, 5B warns Aurora to hide because a real “monster” is coming. 5B battles a male hitman while a female assassin attempts to shoot Aurora. However, the monster from beneath Aurora’s bed eats the woman.

After recovering from his fight, 5B checks on Aurora, who tells him the monster killed her attacker. 5B continues dismissing Aurora’s claims of a creature, including telling her the dragon she saw him kill wasn’t real, yet the two of them bond as Aurora becomes fascinated with 5B’s methods of disposing of bodies.

Posing as a caseworker from Child and Family Services, undercover FBI agent Brenda comes to Aurora’s apartment. Clocking Brenda as an FBI agent, 5B poses as Aurora’s new father. From Brenda, 5B learns the girl has lost three consecutive sets of foster parents, all of whom she claims were killed by a monster triggered by walking on her bedroom floor.

Aurora and 5B continue bonding as she tells him about the wish she believes brought 5B to her. Aurora also explains how she thinks the monster wants to eat her because she is wicked and doesn’t deserve a family, which earns 5B’s sympathy.

5B has another meeting with Laverne, who admits she hired the assassins to kill Aurora because the girl can identify 5B. Because he took suitcases, Aurora interrupts the meeting to accuse 5B of intending to abandon her like her previous guardians. Dismissive of the bond growing between Aurora and her son, as well as of Aurora’s claims of a monster eating her parents and the female assassin, Laverne warns that 5B should leave town because other hitmen are still looking to kill him.

5B and Aurora eat at a Chinese restaurant where they are cryptically threatened by a conspicuously inconspicuous man after 5B denies Aurora’s request to become her father. The man warns that assassins are coming after 5B and the girl won’t be able to shield him.

The man leads a group of hitmen in following Aurora and 5B back to their apartment building. Answering a request from 5B, Brenda returns. Aurora warns Brenda about the supposed monster. 5B warns Brenda about the dangerous gunmen stalking outside.

Laverne visits her son to warn him about the hitmen who’ve come to kill him. 5B tells his mother that he intentionally summoned the FBI to create a cover story that connects the assassins to the disappeared people he killed as well as to Aurora’s missing families. Before leaving, Laverne insists the girl must die since she has seen both of their faces.

Brenda admits to 5B that she is an FBI agent who has been investigating Aurora’s mysteriously missing families. The gunmen from outside suddenly attack 5B and Brenda, but the assassins are ultimately eaten by the monster from underneath Aurora’s bedroom floor, forcing 5B and Brenda to finally realize the creature is real. Aurora is shocked to see the monster swallow 5B before it retreats back under the floor.

The following morning, 5B unexpectedly bursts from beneath the floor after having been rejected by the monster for having the taste of anti-thumb-sucking formula on him. Laverne returns and sees her son embracing Aurora. Despite Aurora and 5B warning her against stepping on the floor, Laverne enters with the intention of killing Aurora. However, the monster reemerges to devour Laverne while she futilely attempts to shoot it with guns disguised as her heels.

The monster moves to attack 5B, but Aurora holds off the dust bunny by stepping in front of 5B and extending her arms. 5B realizes Aurora can control the monster because it belongs to her. 5B and Aurora leave together via the fire escape to avoid the floor. As they drive away, 5B’s car is seen casting the monster’s shadow as though it is following them. Brenda is seen still hiding in Aurora’s apartment.

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Review:

“Dust Bunny” starts from such an ingeniously simple premise, it’s a wonder no one made a movie out of it until now. Virtually every kid who has ever slept in a bed raised off the floor has at one time considered there might be a monster under it. So too has Aurora, who is either eight years old or ten years old depending on which press release one goes by, a little girl insistent that a sentient dust bunny has grown fangs and wants to eat people when it’s not hiding beneath her floorboards. Naturally, Aurora’s parents tell her she’s imagining things. Since they’re not going to be of any help, Aurora has the brilliant idea to hire a hitman to get rid of the elusive beast for her.

Writer/director Bryan Fuller presents “Dust Bunny” as a family-friendly fairy tale with a lightly frightful twist. Set in an indeterminate city, most of the movie takes place in a cavernous yet oddly unpopulated apartment building that’s a fantastical combo of Wonka-like interiors and rainy alleyway exteriors. Costumes seem soaked in 1960s fashion even though Aurora eats from an ‘80s box of Franken Berry cereal. To avoid inadvertently summoning the monster by stepping on her floor, Aurora also navigates long hallways by “rowing” a big brass hippopotamus like she’s sailing down Venice canals. Many characters don’t even have names. Mads Mikkelsen’s hitman appears in end credits as “Intriguing Neighbor” while some of his assassin enemies are just called “Intimidating Woman” and “Conspicuously Inconspicuous Man.”

Aurora figures out what her “intriguing neighbor” from apartment 5B does for a living by trailing him to Chinatown in a sequence that goes wordless for ten minutes. Against a backdrop of colorful fireworks and glowing neon signs reflecting on dark stone walls, 5B pulls off some impressive “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” choreography while wearing a yellow Bruce Lee-inspired jumpsuit and slicing his sword through gun-toting gangsters disguised by a Chinese dragon Aurora thinks is real. Here is also where the audience discovers “Dust Bunny” is less of a horror-ish film and more of a “John Wick Jr.” action extravaganza interested in stunts more than scares.

What few words are spoken during this first act are largely inconsequential, like Aurora calling for her parents or her parents doing a muffled Charlie Brown warble. An impatient viewer might miss these moments later though, because once the talking starts in earnest, there ends up being a lot of it.

It takes about eight minutes of dialogue, a solid two of which are just the both of them seated at a table, for Aurora to present 5B with stolen money as she explains her situation and negotiates payment for procuring his services. Then 5B spends another three minutes recounting what happened with Aurora to his handler Laverne, played by Sigourney Weaver. There are intermittent instances of gunplay and fistfights, but viewers had better buckle up for plenty more conversations whenever “Dust Bunny” puts the brakes on the pace, which is often, so 5B can converse with an undercover FBI agent, stare down a rival assassin, or have yet another quiet interaction with Laverne.

“Dust Bunny” tries its best to be gateway horror for a younger crowd, but extended stretches of silence repeatedly followed by slow buildups really tax the tempo. Teens and preteens aren’t likely to get anything out of inclusions like Sigourney Weaver’s character either. Laverne has a quirk of holding her mouth wide open to unclench her jaw, mirroring the yawns many might have while they watch her take a meeting in a wine bar, an unfamiliar place to children, while eating charcuterie, an unfamiliar word to those same small ones. These are curiously droll creative choices for a film not squarely aimed at adults.

Laverne and 5B discuss murder for money while ceiling rings are lit to look like ironic halos over their heads, a gag that goes on too long as the camera continually cuts back and forth during the same setup. Other visual jokes are just as dry, such as Laverne issuing a warning that 5B ought to leave town immediately, without doing anything silly like stopping for dim sum, only for the camera to cut to 5B and Aurora eating dumplings in a Chinese restaurant. More flat than funny, the film’s slight sense of humor comes across with the same tightness that chokes other attempts at whimsy.

Oddly enough for a movie with a monster, “Dust Bunny” underwhelms by underdelivering on the horror inherent in its premise. The titular terror devours its earliest victims offscreen, and isn’t seen in the open until the finale, leaving a glaring gap to suggest it might not even exist at all. A couple of noisy shootouts have a hard time filling in the flavor whenever “Dust Bunny” comes up short on all three ingredients in its muted mix of creepy, cute, and cool. Maybe that’s enough for some viewers to still squeeze out a smile, though the film could use much more of the monster, and a heavier dose of eccentricity could only help ignite a stronger spark of storybook fantasy.

NOTE: There is a brief mid-credits scene.

Review Score: 55

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