Anomaly Film Festival 2025 Coverage
Dust Bunny review
Bryan Fuller’s directorial debut is full of…um…Fuller.
Festival reviews will not contain spoilers.
Dust Bunny
Directed by Bryan Fuller
Written by Bryan Fuller
Starring Mads Mikkelsen, Sophie Sloan, Sigourney Weaver, David Dastmalchian, Rebecca Henderson and Shelia Atim
Dust Bunny Review
The opening feature of this year’s Anomaly Film Festival was Bryan Fuller’s Dust Bunny. It was accompanied by a short film called The Traveler & The Troll. Without even seeing Dust Bunny yet…it was clear that The Traveler & The Troll was going to be a good fit for the program. The short had that mix of weird fantasy and comedy that you would also expect to find in Dust Bunny. A woman enters a magical forest and happens upon an evil troll. In order for her soul to escape the forest…she must answer his three riddles. Unfortunately for the troll…she’s very good at riddles. The troll is a puppet that adds to the weirdness of the piece. A perfect way to lead into Bryan Fuller’s first feature film.
Fuller’s name is probably familiar to you from several television projects. Dead Like Me, Pushing Daisies, Heroes, Star Trek Discovery, American Gods and Hannibal are the ones you’ve probably heard of. For far too few people in 2004…he was also the co-creator of Wonderfalls. Wonderfalls was a terrific show that lasted four episodes on Fox. They shot 13…which you can get on DVD (and definitely should). Dust Bunny is the first time in a long career that Fuller has turned in a feature film. He serves as the writer and director here…and you can rest assured there is plenty of Bryan Fuller on display here.
Dust Bunny’s premise involves a monster under a little girl’s bed. Specifically, you may have guessed, a dust bunny. We learn more about this monster throughout the course of the film. Including whether or not it’s even real. It’s real to Aurora (Sophie Sloan) …and that’s what drives most of the movie. After her parents are supposedly eaten by the monster, Aurora seeks out help from her neighbor (Mads Mikkelsen). She’s convinced that he kills monsters after following him one night and watching him…kill a monster. At least that’s how she viewed the event. In reality, the man (who is never named in the film) was killing something much more ordinary. And it’s put Aurora, and himself, in incredible danger.
There’s a bit of John Wick to how Dust Bunny chooses to (and not to) present the underground world it takes place in. We know that the neighbor kills people. And that Aurora seeing his face and knowing what he does means that she has become a target for whoever it is the man works for. We know that he works for Sigourney Weaver (who is having a blast with the character) but there are few details beyond that. Whether the giant bunny shaped monster under Aurora’s bed is real or not…there are real monsters coming to kill them both.
Dust Bunny is one part action, one part comedy and one part found family. We learn that Aurora’s parents were her foster family…and that they aren’t the first set of guardians to disappear. Or the second. She claims that the monster under her bed has been following her and it eats whoever touches the floor at night. We see that a giant dust bunny does, in fact, crawl out of her floor at night. But we also see her neighbor killing a dragon from her perspective when we know he was killing people. We do eventually learn the truth about the monster so don’t worry that it will always be left vague.
Like many Fuller projects, Dust Bunny is colorful and stylish. It’s also very funny. There’s a sweetness to the growing relationship between Aurora and her neighbor…even if he thinks she’s insane. He’s also pretty sure that her foster parents were taken out by someone looking for him. So, there’s a bit of a protective angle from the start. That need to help her is what ends up getting them both marked for death. They’ll have run-ins with killers and the FBI as they try to survive what’s coming their way. And, possibly, a giant rabbit monster that eats people at night.
Mikkelsen and Sloan are fantastic. Their slow and natural progression towards caring about each other is the heart of the film. It’s a great role for Mikkelsen who gets to show off his no-nonsense dangerous side while cracks of something warmer begin to appear over time. You believe he can kill monsters…or people…or become the protector of a girl who can’t tell the difference. You may have seen found family stories before…but have you ever seen a parent/child bond formed over dismembering a body in a bathtub? This December you’ll be able to.
Scare Value
Dust Bunny is as weird as it is delightful. Mads Mikkelsen and Sophie Sloan are terrific. Sigourney Weaver looks like she’s having the time of her life. There’s dark comedy, action, a beautiful character arc or two…and, perhaps, that pesky giant monster who will eat you if you touch the floor at night. Byan Fuller walks the line between fantasy and reality for as long as he can before firmly choosing a side to place his story in. The result is a lot of fun, a lot of laughs, and a surprisingly effective amount of heart.
Dust Bunny Link
In theaters December 12, 2025 – Fandango
