Movie Review: Dust Bunny

 

Michael's Movie Grade: A

A wonderful nightmarish fantasy. 

This film's director and writer, Bryan Fuller has already proved himself to be one of the most unique voices in television. For TV he created such shows as Dead Like Me, Wonderfalls, Pushing Daisies (a show I used to watch regularly) and Star Trek: Discovery as well developing Hannibal. With Dust Bunny, he brings his unique vision to cinema screens for the first time. The results are delightful. 

In the wonderful creative storyline, a little girl (Sophie Sloan) hires an assassin (Mads Mikkelsen) to kill the monster under her bed after it eats her parents. 

What makes this movie work so well is that it fully puts us into the mind of a child. For most of the movie, we only get fleeting glimpses of the monster as we spend much time viewing everything from under her covers with us. This brings us back to being unable to sleep at night because of all the noises we hear. While the monster is fully seen in later parts of the film, keeping it hidden during these early scenes was very much the right choice. Also helping these scenes bring us back to our childhood fears is none of the grownups believing her. This was always one of the most frustrating parts of being a child and it is perfectly captured here. The idea of no grownup believing us, also tending to make our fears worse. The sheer creativity in the storytelling also reflects, how our minds worked as a child. The idea of only being in danger if you touch the floor and the girl's creative ways of touching it are just the type of creativity that we all had as children. As this movie reaches out to our inner child, it does so from our most cynical side. Rather than dragging the child into the adult world, this film drags the cynical and skeptical adults into the child's world. This makes us as an audience more susceptible to this movie's childlike charms. 

As well as capturing our childlike fears, this movie is also wildly entertaining. The creepy scenes are delightfully creepy without ever becoming too scary. The action scenes are a lot of fun. The humor is often really funny. Even the relationship between the little girl and the assassin are surprisingly heartwarming. The cast is also excellent without a single weak member. Mads Mikkelsen and Sophie Sloan are wonderful as the two leads and have great chemistry with each other. Sigourney Weaver also often steals the show in her supporting role. The score by Isabella Summers (the keyboardist for the band Florence and the Machine) is also a delight and perfectly fits the tone of the film. 

Typical of a Bryan Fuller product, this move has a wonderfully creative and atmospheric look to it. The sets and the use of color are wonderful and heavily atmospheric. It is no wonder this was by the guy responsible for Pushing Daisies. Though the monster is kept mostly hidden in the early scene, when we finally see it in all its glory, the design is wonderfully creative being whimsical and scary at the same time. 

It is a shame this movie got an R rating. I am not quite sure of the reason for this as I have seen PG-13 movies that are much more intense than this. However, I think this would be a perfect gateway horror movie for kids and there is not much here that is inappropriate for at least older kids. Yet this R rating is going to keep this perfect protentional audience away from this great film. 

This is a true delight that I hope one day finds a big audience. It deserves that.