Dust Bunny Review: With a Captivating Mads Mikkelsen, Bryan Fuller’s Dazzling Horror Fantasy is a Classic in the Making
The TV auteur’s film debut is a family-friendly dark fable equal parts chilling and charming
by Alex Secilmis 14 December 2025
Courtesy of Roadside Attractions
Bryan Fuller’s move to the silver screen was long overdue. The showrunner behind twisted procedurals Pushing Daisies and Hannibal has always privileged an elevated, operatic tone that would readily lend itself to cinema, and now the idiosyncratic writer, director, and producer has finally made that transition. With Dust Bunny, he swaps the elaborate serial storytelling of his television for an ingeniously simple premise: what if a little girl (Sophie Sloan) hired a hitman (Mads Mikkelsen) to kill the monster under her bed?
Described by Fuller as Amblin gateway horror by way of Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Dust Bunny blends the sincerity and heart of Spielberg’s 80s output with the lush, uncanny atmosphere of the French duo’s oeuvre. The result is something unlike any studio film today, with stretches of the story playing like a silent film. Matching its tone is a zany plot built on misunderstanding and supposed childish superstition: Aurora is convinced her parents have been eaten by an actual, rabbit-shaped dust bunny (part-puppet, part-CGI, all-cute monstrosity), while her contract killer neighbour, known only as Resident 5B, believes they were the accidental victims of a hit intended for him. Naturally, she robs a church to “procure” his services (a term she learned in her word-a-day calendar) to eliminate the monster, and he agrees to help her out of guilt. Also in the picture is 5B’s underworld colleague, Laverne (Sigourney Weaver), a mysterious, cold-hearted fixer who chalks up his affection for Aurora to some unresolved childhood trauma.
Mads Mikkelsen as Resident 5B in Dust Bunny. Courtesy of Roadside Attractions
Along with its director, the star of Dust Bunny also makes her film debut, and Sophie Sloan is a revelation as young Aurora. Her deeply empathetic performance perfectly balances the film’s highly stylised, Baroque leanings, and thanks to her sharp comedic timing, she goes toe-to-toe with heavyweights like Mikkelsen and Weaver. As for the veterans, Mikkelsen as a hitman is already perfect casting on paper, but the Danish actor undercuts the role’s suave exterior with a touching childlike vulnerability—and in a small but memorable part, Weaver lights up the screen with just the right amount of scene-chewing flair. Sheila Atim and David Dastmalchian likewise impress, with the former playing a duplicitous FBI agent and the latter an icy hitman who ends up losing his cool to amusing effect.
Sophie Sloan, Mads Mikkelsen, and Sigourney Weaver in Dust Bunny. Courtesy of Roadside Attractions
With a darkly whimsical score from Isabella Summers, Jeremy Reed’s opulent production design, and Nicole Hirsch Whitaker’s mischievously dynamic cinematography (there are many split diopter shots), Dust Bunny is a visual and sonic feast. The world-building is exceptional, and the film’s disarming, dreamlike pacing allows you to soak it all in. This is a rich film, and at every turn (like Aurora’s spectacularly stylish church robbery scene set to Sister Janet Mead’s pop-rock version of the Lord’s Prayer), you can tell that Fuller and his crew are having fun. It’s a handsome display of craft executed with an endearing lighthearted energy, and the end product is exactly what Fuller has billed it as: “family-friendly horror”.
David Dastmalchian is a hitman hunting Mads Mikkelsen. Courtesy of Roadside Attractions
Unfortunately, the film’s target audience will face an obstacle if they want to see it in cinemas. It is a crime that the MPAA has given Dust Bunny an R-rating. Fuller has explicitly crafted a fantastical child-led film to initiate young viewers into the genre, and the violence is so purposefully bloodless and cartoonish that it is truly inconceivable that the film hasn’t been awarded a PG-13. Recently, the delightfully disturbing M3GAN earned that rating and became a smash horror hit as a consequence, even though here in the UK it was given a deserved 15 certificate. For reference, although it has yet to secure UK distribution plans, Dust Bunny has been assessed by the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) and awarded a 12A.
Still, Dust Bunny is the kind of film that little horror fans in the making will find through home media and streaming. And with the winning performances from Mikkelsen, Sloan, and Weaver—paired with Fuller’s masterful direction and ornate world-building—it more than deserves to become a future gateway horror classic.
Dust Bunny is now playing in US theatres