Movies & TV Dust Bunny Dust Bunny Will Have You Demanding That Bryan Fuller Make More Movies Monsters-as-metaphor is a tactic Fuller knows all too well — and he will not be playing by “the rules.” By Emmet Asher-Perrin | Published on December 15, 2025 Credit: Lionsgate Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Lionsgate If you were already a fan of Bryan Fuller—of Star Trek, Dead Like Me, Pushing Daisies, Wonderfalls, Hannibal, and the one good season of American Gods fame—then hearing that he finally made a movie was bound to be exciting, right? How could we not be collectively revved for Fuller’s debut into a new medium? Is it mostly exciting because movies can’t get cancelled halfway through your viewing? Naturally. (But that was hurtful to say, and I apologize.) Dust Bunny is the story of a little girl named Aurora (Sophie Sloan) whose parents are killed by the monster under her bed—a dust bunny made bloodily manifest. As she knows her building neighbor, Resident 5B (Mads Mikkelsen), is a hitman who can kill monsters, she hires him to destroy it. The trouble is, 5B is having hitman problems of the real-life murder kind, and he’s certain that Aurora’s parents were just good old-fashioned killed with guns in an attempt to get him. This gets further complicated when he eventually learns a few things about Aurora’s past that suggest something else might be amiss. The central mystery of Dust Bunny on its face would seem to be: Is the monster real or a metaphor for one little girl’s trauma? And because it’s Bryan Fuller, that question will not be answered the way you expect. But this setup alone communicates far less than the film achieves. It’s impossible to have watched Pushing Daisies without assuming that this film is set in the same universe; the city we see here is similarly vibrant, all neon and ornate decor and painted wallpaper. The apartments are full of oddities, the human beings move in strangely choreographed synchronization, the music cues are carefully and immaculately selected. The murder and darkness are framed by overt absurdity and humor, and food looks like little plates of artwork. These are all factors that will be familiar to devotees of Fuller’s work, but the tone is what puts Pushing Daisies in mind. Ned and Chuck are likely just a few hundred miles away, selling gorgeous pies and solving other murders. The effect of Fuller’s world-making led to something that was so psychically relieving, I have to give it an aside all its own: Because this world is undeniably separate from ours, Aurora’s bedroom contains no branded material at all. There’s no product placement, no IP markers, no pointed little nods to things kids today are obsessing over. This obviously makes the movie wonderfully timeless in a post-Americana sort of way, but it also forces us to reckon with a creative landscape that rarely allows us any kind of break from being sold to. There’s nothing in this film to distract us from the story itself. Every in it that you see, you are meant to see because it’s part of the story, not some disgusting attempt at brand synergy. It also forces us to reckon with how this same landscape has created a different kind of viewing experience, where audiences are rewarded for going over the background of every shot in a film to find a character’s touchstones, to form a picture of their personality via the minutiae of their environment and what the viewer can identify, rather than zeroing in on the actor’s performance. There are so many wonderful toys in Aurora’s room and home, but they are serving the overall design choices of the film as a whole, as support for the work that Sophie Sloan is doing in the role. The same goes for Mikkelsen’s portrayal, aided by a wardrobe full of colorful and flowered track suits and a lamp made from a chicken that nearly steals the movie every time it appears. I’ll admit to being aggravated at the number of people trying to sell audiences on this film by fitting it into a category they think the viewer already enjoys. There’s a lot of buzz going around about how it feels like an older movie, or that it’s a dark fairy tale for those who like that sort of thing, and sure, you can make all those arguments. I will bring up all the movies about scary murder humans who take care of little children down below because it is a genre that’s close to my own heart, so yes, I’m a bit of a hypocrite here. But that’s not what makes this movie stunning to behold, what makes it feel precious in an era of sprawling multiverses and “easter eggs” that are nothing but endless deep cuts. What you think when you watch anything made by Bryan Fuller is “I would like to be there right now, thank you.” In a fight for my life, in fear of a monster, eating food that used to be something (or someone) living, it doesn’t matter—I would like to occupy this place. A place full of sacred geometries and coordinated colors and environmental framing. A place where lightbulbs buzz because Fuller knows they do. It is important to note that the first twenty-ish minutes of the film have practically no dialogue whatsoever as we follow Aurora around her little world… and none is needed. We’re getting everything we require by watching and interacting through her vantage point, and a child’s world is so often internal in nature. All of Fuller’s action sequences look like dances, the actors leaping or going deadweight according to what is most visually dynamic in the moment. People get dragged out of frame like marionettes with their strings cut. There is tenderness in how characters attempt to choke each other unconscious, the acknowledgment that acting on another’s body with ill intent is still a deeply personal act. Violence is not about brute force or dominance within the confines of this story, but rather another form of human contact, with all the messiness and confusion that entails. The supporting cast is absolutely stunning on all fronts. Obviously, everyone will be excited to see Sigourney Weaver (and I should add that there’s a face she makes early on in the film that is so jarring, you have a brief moment of wondering if it’s CGI before you realize that she’s perfectly capable of being that unnerving on her own) in the role of Laverne, whose relationship with Mikkelsen is enjoyably bizarre until it’s suddenly not. The performances from David Dastmalchian, Shiela Atim, and Rebecca Henderson are equally captivating, and I hope to see all of them in more Fuller projects going forward. But the core of the film is all about 5B’s unintentional parentage of Aurora, and what this murderer-for-hire will do about the little girl with no parents who keeps telling him the monster under her bed is real. Their dynamic will bring a number of similar films to mind—Leon: The Professional, Gloria, Aliens, The Fall, the Lone Wolf and Cub films, the list is truly endless if you love scary adults who protect kids—but Fuller captures something truly special with these two. It’s not simply about unlikely fatherhood, but about the bonds that help people heal, and how often they come from the most ridiculous places. Try to seek this one out in theaters, if you can. If not, find it on streaming when it hits—older kids will likely be okay to watch provided they’re good with monsters and some stylistic violence. (The R-rating makes no sense on this one, and they received it for a truly goofy reason.) But more to the point, please let Bryan Fuller make more movies. And finish his TV shows. And make more TV shows. Just, stop sleeping on these beautiful realities that have such chicken butt lamps in them.[end-mark] The post <i>Dust Bunny</i> Will Have You Demanding That Bryan Fuller Make More Movies appeared first on Reactor.