Dust Bunny

What is going to be the next classic scary movie for kids. Previous generations had Coraline or Watership Down or The Never Ending Story. But with the sanitization of media nowadays it’s hard to find something that will really give kids a scare. Dust Bunny tries to be that and also a Wes Anderson film and a fast paced action and about a billion other things.

Dust Bunny is Bryan Fuller’s directorial film debut, previously having created television shows such as Hannibal. The film follows Aurora (Sophie Sloan), a young girl who has a monster under bed who wreaks havoc every night. She gets the help of an assassin for hire (Mads Mikkelson) in order to enact revenge for the monster eating her parents.

The CGI on this one is pretty ugly looking. Both the technical elements and the design itself of the monster look very cheap. It doesn’t help that the whole film is leading up to seeing the monster, so with the disappointing design and an underchoreographed fight scene, the ending is very underwhelming. To get to that awaited climax, you have to get through the middle of this film, which mostly involves Aurora just avoiding the monster and scheming with Mikkelson.

The lighting on this one is also odd, as it uses a lot of yellow lighting with yellow sets. This makes the world look sickly and unpleasant, which feels disconnected from the more fantastical elements of the set design.

I will admit that all Sloan and Mikkelson do a good job with the script that they are given. Sigourney Weaver as the assassins boss felt like she was phoning it in at parts.

There are some parts that are charming. I like the concept and parts of the set design. But I believe the biggest problem with this one is that it doesn’t really know its audience. It feels too slow and a little too violent for children. Yet, the visuals and tone wouldn’t appeal to most adults. It just exists in a middle-state that unlike the films listed at the beginning, wouldn’t appeal to any age.