A girl hires a hit man to kill the monster she believes ate her entire family. To protect her, he’ll need to battle an onslaught of assassins while accepting the fact that some monsters are real. From the creator of Pushing Daisies and Hannibal, a film by Bryan Fuller, starring Mads Mikkelsen, Sophie Sloan, Sheila Atim, David Dastmalchian, Rebecca Henderson, and Sigourney Weaver.

At night, ten-year-old Aurora (Sophie Sloan) feels her bed trembling as if something is moving beneath it. Under the bed, a clump of dust reshapes itself into a rabbit and rises to stand. Frightened, Aurora screams, jolting awake her mother (Line Kruse) and father (Caspar Phillipson), who rush to her doorway. Trembling, Aurora tells them something is under her bed. As her mother approaches, Aurora warns her not to touch the floor. From the doorway, her mother kneels down and peers beneath the bed. She reassures Aurora that it’s nothing but dust bunnies. Dismissing it as her daughter’s imagination, she tell Aurora to go back to sleep.

Dust bunnies are small, fluffy clumps of household dust, hair, lint, dead skin cells, spider webs, and debris that accumulate in corners, under furniture, or other neglected spots. Held together by static electricity and entanglement, they form gradually as airborne particles settle in low-airflow areas, often growing larger over time. While mostly harmless, they can harbor allergens like dust mites, clog air filters, trigger respiratory issues, or even pose minor fire risks near heat sources.

After her parents return to their bedroom, Aurora is too frightened to stay in her bed. She grabs her blanket, pillow, and favorite plush doll, then climbs out the window to sleep on the fire escape. Curious, she peeks back through the window and sees a small dust bunny staring back at her, then it leaps out from under her bed, growling.

While lying down, Aurora sees a shooting star streak across the sky. She closes her eyes and wishes for someone to save her from the monster under her bed. When she opens her eyes, she notices a firefly, followed by the sound of a door opening downstairs. Her gaze follows the firefly as it floats down toward a mysterious man walking through the darkened alley below.

The next morning, the firefly leads Aurora to mailbox 5B in her apartment building. She waits for the intriguing neighbor (Mads Mikkelsen) to arrive and collect his mail, then slips into the elevator with him as he heads up, trying to get a good look at his face. That night, when the neighbor leaves his apartment, Aurora follows him.

In Chinatown, the intriguing neighbor is attacked by a group of killers disguised as dragon dance performers. Despite being outnumbered, he manages to defeat them all. Watching from a rooftop above, Aurora believes the neighbor slayed a dragon. Visibly pleased, she’s convinced she’s finally found someone capable of killing the monster under her bed.

Returning home, Aurora spots the dust bunny staring at her before it disappears through the parquet floor. She knows it will come for her parents, who refuse to believe that monsters are real. That night, the dust bunny transforms into a giant monster and devours them. Aurora hides under her blanket, sobbing as her parents’ screams fade into silence.

The next morning, Aurora is too scared to touch the floor. She climbs onto her ride-on hippopotamus and rides it to her parents’ bedroom, only to discover they’ve both vanished and the room has been wrecked.

At nightfall, the monster emerges from beneath the floor. Aurora clings to her headboard with all her strength as her bed begins to tilt and shake violently. The monster searches desperately for her, seemingly unaware that her bed is resting on its back.

Aurora wakes up in her bed the next morning to find everything in her room looks exactly as it did before, as if nothing happened and it was all just a nightmare. The camera lingers on a table lamp’s shattered light bulb, hinting that the monster under her bed may actually be real. Determined to get rid of the monster, Aurora steals donation money from the local church and uses it to procure the neighbor’s services, believing him to be a professional monster slayer.

When the neighbor receives Aurora’s letter and cash from the envelope she slipped into his mailbox, he’s reluctant to take the job. The neighbor turns out to be an assassin who kills people, not fantastical creatures. He suspects Aurora’s parents were murdered by rival assassins sent to eliminate him. But they got the wrong apartment and her parents became collateral damage. Feeling responsible and knowing the killers will likely return to silence her as a witness, he reluctantly agrees to help.

At an opulent underground club, the neighbor asks Laverne (Sigourney Weaver) to investigate the disappearance of Aurora’s parents, Cecil and Karen Jacoby. He explains that their daughter was also in the apartment when it happened, but she only heard something without seeing anything, convinced it was a monster under her bed. His theory is that intruders broke into their apartment by mistake, thinking it was his, and killed the parents who had seen them. They likely spared the girl because she saw nothing.

🅟

@pradt

DUST BUNNY 🐇
Some monsters are real.
—
From the creator of Pushing Daisies and Hannibal, a film by Bryan Fuller, starring Mads Mikkelsen, Sophie Sloan, Sheila Atim, David Dastmalchian, Rebecca Henderson, and Sigourney Weaver.

Laverne agrees to look into it. However, she points out that while the girl claims she didn’t see what happened to her parents, she has seen his face, compromising his identity in a profession where anonymity is everything. Laverne hints that he should eliminate the girl, but he insists he won’t kill a child.

Since the neighbor refuses to kill the child, Laverne takes matters into her own hands by sending two assassins to take care of the problem. Knowing Laverne won’t let anyone who’s seen his face live, the neighbor slips into Aurora’s apartment to protect her. While he fights the male assassin (Roland Szóka) in the hallway, the female assassin (Nóra Trokán) climbs through Aurora’s bedroom window.

As the assassin prepares to shoot Aurora hiding in the closet, the monster emerges from under the bed and devours her whole. When the neighbor regains consciousness, he rushes into Aurora’s bedroom and finds her unharmed in the closet with no trace of the other assassin. Aurora tells him the monster ate the assassin, but he believes she fled through the fire escape.

They are unexpectedly visited by Brenda Bautista (Sheila Atim), an FBI agent posing as a social worker, claiming they had an appointment. The neighbor tries to turn her away because he doesn’t want her to enter and discover the body. He lies that they’re all sick and he doesn’t want her catching it. Brenda mentions that Aurora’s parents aren’t her biological parents but her third set of foster parents. After Brenda leaves, the neighbor confronts Aurora, who insists all of her parents were eaten by the monster.

At a Chinese restaurant, the neighbor and Aurora encounter a conspicuously inconspicuous man (David Dastmalchian) who’s been hired to kill the neighbor. He warns that while the girl’s presence is unexpected, it won’t stop him and the others from completing their assignment. They’ll kill her first, then him. The neighbor escorts Aurora back to her apartment with the inconspicuous man and his gang trailing behind. Aurora assumes the neighbor will let the monster eat them, but he still doesn’t believe her.

He hatches a plan involving Brenda, having figured out she’s an FBI agent. He invites her back, pretending to be a concerned neighbor from across the hall. He reveals he knows about the disappearance of the girl’s foster parents, whom she claims were eaten by a monster. However, he believes the girl is delusional and her life is in danger because the people who murdered her parents are coming back to tie up loose ends.

Written and directed by American filmmaker Bryan Fuller in his feature-length directorial debut, DUST BUNNY is an action thriller that seamlessly blends fantastical elements and suspense with captivating world-building and exceptional production design.

The story follows a young girl who attempts to hire her intriguing neighbor to kill the monster living under her bed. Convinced it devoured her parents, she believes the creature won’t stop hunting until it claims her too.

The cast delivers wonderful performances with hilarious dialogue and great chemistry. There are some silly laugh-out-loud moments, like when the neighbor continuously mispronounces Aurora’s name throughout the film, or when Laverne has to stretch her jaw before eating. At first, it seems like she might be a monster about to swallow an entire sandwich in one bite, but she just takes a tiny piece. The scene continues as she keeps nibbling small bites while the neighbor grows visibly bored.

I also love the fight scenes, particularly the first one between the neighbor and the dragon dance performers in the dark alley. The combination of fight choreography and fireworks (which I assume were added in post-production) in the neon-lit Chinatown makes the world-building feel both futuristic and mystical.

DUST BUNNY premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on 9 September 2025. The film was theatrically released in the United State son 12 December.