Dust Bunny (2025)

Movie · 2025 · Fantasy, Action, Horror · 1h 46m · R · English

Curator score: 4.2/10 (43.4K ratings)

Sometimes there really are monsters under your bed.

Overview

Ten-year-old Aurora asks her hitman neighbor to kill the monster under her bed that she claims ate her family. To protect her, he must battle an onslaught of assassins while accepting that some monsters are real.

Ratings

Director

Bryan Fuller

Production

Entertainment One, Thunder Road, Hero Squared, Living Dead Guy Productions

Cast

Mads Mikkelsen, Sophie Sloan, Sheila Atim, David Dastmalchian, Rebecca Henderson, Sigourney Weaver, Line Kruse, Caspar Phillipson, Armond Willis, Rea Milla, Tibor Szauerwein, Sute Zhao, Tao Jia, Hisham Omer, Inotay Ákos, Roland Szóka, Nóra Trokán, Ferenc Kovács, Narantsogt Tsogtsaikhan, Ákos Szalai

Where to watch

Max

Curator Review

Verdict

A visually inventive fairy-tale action-horror with strong production design, a playful dark tone, and a memorable odd-couple dynamic. It sounds like the kind of movie that wins over viewers who like stylized genre mashups, even if the plotting and effects don’t fully land for everyone.

Best for

  • fans of dark fairy tales and twisted bedtime-story vibes
  • viewers who like stylized action-horror with a comic streak
  • Bryan Fuller TV devotees
  • people who enjoy strong production design and creature-feature atmosphere

Skip if

  • you want a tightly plotted, straightforward thriller
  • you’re allergic to CGI-heavy fantasy imagery
  • you prefer grounded realism over heightened genre stylization
  • you need consistently serious horror or intense gore

Overview

Dust Bunny looks like a designer toy box of genre ideas: hitman noir, childlike fairy tale, monster movie, and offbeat comedy all packed into one glossy, shadowy package. The appeal is immediate if you like movies that build a strange little world and let the production design do a lot of the storytelling.

Worth noting

The strongest element is the relationship at the center, which gives the film warmth and a slightly off-kilter emotional anchor. That balance between menace and tenderness seems to be the movie’s main trick, and when it works, it sounds genuinely charming and funny.

Bottom line

It also sounds uneven. The reviews suggest some repetition, some confusion, and some effects choices that don’t always match the ambition of the concept. Still, for viewers who enjoy bold, weird, highly stylized genre cinema, this is the kind of imperfect movie that can become a cult favorite.

Top Letterboxd reviews

m 95 (5★) · 1766 likes

hannibal season 4 is everywhere for those with eyes to see it

Brian Tallerico (3.5★) · 916 likes

So Bryan Fuller made a movie that echoes Jeunet & Caro, Jim Henson, and Roald Dahl. I only wish they had gone animatronic instead of CGI. This is gonna be a future filmmaker’s favorite movie as a kid.

cob (3★) · 669 likes

i wish mads mikkelsen was MY foster dad

Jill Krajewski (4★) · 635 likes

need sigourney weaver’s high heel guns biblically

JackFolla (3★) · 557 likes

It has a very interesting premise and an ambitious staging that doesn't always live up to its promise, with a story that becomes increasingly confusing and repetitive as the minutes pass. In the end, there are a few beautiful scenes, beautiful colors, and an overall entertaining hour and a half. It won't change the history of cinema but a little imperfect entertainment like this, given the dearth of originality surrounding us, is fine.

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Topics

dark fantasy, action horror, fairy tale, surreal, cult potential, production design, monster under the bed, odd-couple, stylized violence, black comedy

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