Dust Bunny Was So Fun, But One Aspect Stood Out The Most

I appreciate and admire movies that take chances. They try something that may have been done a few times but not enough to exhaust the genre. Therefore, I went into a screening of Dust Bunny with a lot of excitement, especially to see how it pays tribute to Bruce Lee.

I have seen a few of Bryan Fuller’s TV shows, and he has a particular style and tone to his work that I enjoy. Therefore, I definitely wanted to see what he brought to his first feature film directorial debut, especially with it being a story that highlights the power of imagination.

Warning: Dust Bunny spoilers are ahead. Proceed with caution

Dust Bunny Reminded Me Just How Powerful Imagination Can Be

Dust Bunny follows Aurora (Sophie Sloan), a young orphan who suffers from a dust-amassing monster living under her bed who has eaten her caregivers. Children often claim monsters live down there, but that's never actually the case...until now. Part of what makes this such a fun concept is that Fuller takes a common trope of the childhood experience and turns it into an incomprehensible reality, like taking a child’s drawing and creating a 3-D version of it.

In that way, everything about Dust Bunny feels like it floated out of a child’s dream or imagination: The way it’s shot, the set design, the costumes, and the characters. The movie never quite feels real but you immediately accept everything as reality. Dust Bunny has been many years in the making and you feel that because you can see how much thought went into everything. It’s all a labor of love and a tribute to the power of imagination, especially that of a child.

Even if this is the real world, it’s also Aurora’s world. She holds the power to make it flourish or collapse - all through her powerful imagination. Dust Bunny shows how belief and dreaming can guide an imaginary or real world.

Imagination Helps The Film Blur Reality And Fiction

When Aurora claims she has a monster under her bed early on, we do actually see this monster in the flesh (as it were), but still don’t quite believe her claims. It’s then shown that some of what Aurora experiences doesn't quite align with viewers' sense of reality. For example, the first fight that Resident 5B (Mads Mikkelsen) gets into is funneled through Aurora’s imagination as him killing off a dragon, when he was actually taking out a bunch of foes beneath a dragon decoration.

Because Aurora doesn’t quite understand Resident 5B’s hitman nature, and finds her own ways to explain other details that she might not logically understand, it keeps us wondering if the dust bunny monster really exists, or if it is also a figment of her imagination meant to shield her from something more sinister at play.

At one point, I worried it the film would fall back on a brutal twist revealing that Aurora actually has been killing these families with malice. Granted, she is technically responsible, but not through active intentions You aren’t quite sure what’s real or Aurora’s imagination until the end of the movie.

The Dust Bunny Ending Works Because Of Its Emphasis On Imagination (And A Bit Of Real Magic)

Dust Bunny has such a fun and hilarious final act. It lives up to the hype and really delivers an over-the-top reveal after one of the coolest hallways fight scenes since Daredevil. When you watch the other hitmen, police, Resident 5B, and others finally seeing and suffering the wrath of the monster themselves, it's clear Aurora has been telling the truth.

But her truth is different from anything objective, as it's revealed she has had control over the monster as its owner, more or less, who believed it into existence. In the end, she's now aware of her ability to guide the beast and use it to her advantage. For a dark family movie that features parents getting chomped on, it's a fairly positive and uplifting conclusion.

Dust Bunny may not have been on your radar but it is absolutely worth catching as one of the final gems among the 2025 movie releases.

Dust Bunny is playing at a theater near you.