Note: I was invited as media for #DustBunny screening and interview. However any personal views expressed are always 100% my own.
After screening Dust Bunny, I loved the unexpected mix of humor, fighthing action and trauma bonding, that feels weirdly right for the characters. Add in amazing background decor and a monster bunny, that still gives me chills about walking on my floor, and it's a film worthy of watching. More then once.
And the guy who thought it up? Ironically wanted to scare you yes, but also wants you to survive that fear. Read what Bryan Fuller had to share about what went into making the Dust Bunny film.
What in your imagination help shape Dust Bunny’s storyline
Bryan Fuller: Fairy tales and being attracted to the horror elements in the story. Because we had cable growing up in the 70s and 80s, I was exposed to a lot of movies, that I probably shouldn't have, because adult supervision was not a thing in that era.
So I was seeing Wizard of Oz, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White, right alongside movies like Black Christmas, and loving all of them and loving that the stakes in all of those stories are very high. They're life and death.
There's witches trying to murder you, or a crazy guy in the attic who's gonna put a grocery bag over your head. So all of those things were kind of hard to separate in my mind, as to what was suitable for me as a child and what wasn't. And that's probably how I ended up making a children's movie that's rated R.
How did you pick the style of Dust Bunny fashion and decor
Bryan Fuller: There were a lot of filmmakers in the 90s, as I was in film school and kind of trying to figure out what excited me about stories.
So I was seeing movies like Alfonso Cuarón's The Little Princess, and his Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban movie, which is dripping with style and creative choices. At every turn, every moment, is heightened and stylized, yet emotionally grounded and had a genuine, authentic quality to the experiences of the humans on screen.
But they were in larger than life worlds.
Bryan Fuller: I loved French maximalism. I remember seeing delicatessen in the theater when I was in film school, and it blew my mind. I didn't know that we could go that far, and make those choices that were that strong. So a lot of French maximalism.
A lot of Spanish language fairy tales. My filmmaking influences were Spanish language films and French language films. They're not afraid of style and they're not afraid of color.
Bryan Fuller: I love the way Sheila Atim is styled in the film. I love her sort of plaid Foxy Brown esthetic. Those were all movies that I was exposed to in my childhood. There was so much style in a lot of those black exploitation movies of the 70s as well.
And movies that were considered exploitation movies, whether it was Hong Kong kung fu movies, like American black quotation films, there was a heightened quality to all of those stories.
Making the Dust Bunny Move: Puppetry and VFX
Bryan Fuller: I love the Jim Henson stories, whether it's Dark Crystal or Labyrinth, and the use of a giant puppet that is going to be your Monster. There was a combination of CG and puppetry in the film.
And for me, it was about what is Aurora's point of view at this moment? And wanting to lull the audience into a false sense of security, with her perception of reality, and allow them to wonder, is this real? Is this imagination? Where are we? Where are we framing this story?
And I think that sort of informed why we're super wide in our aspect ratio, because that creates a psychological space where danger could be encroaching from the edges of her world. And there's enough room for it to encroach that that felt very exciting to me.
So it really was about creating a psychological space with the monster as well, and having the audience wonder, okay, is this part real? Like, when the bunny comes up from under her bed, and then she wakes up the next day. And we're like, what happened there.
For viewers who recognize their trauma experiences, what do you want to be the take away?
Bryan Fuller: Thank you so much for asking this question. I grew up in a very tricky childhood. I had a very violent father, and the monster under my bed, was really down the hall in my parents room.
And so there was a lot of fear in my childhood, but it wasn't fear of imaginary things, it was fear of the real things. I think the thing that I would love people to talk about, and ask themselves, is how they are Aurora?
That's why when he says, why would you make this wish about your parents? Why would you want a monster to eat your parents? And she says, they're not very nice to me.
Bryan Fuller: I wanted everybody to see that through their own lens, and have their own experience with why you might not have felt safe in your environment, why you might be mad at your parents. Is it because you didn't get cha cha heels at Christmas?, or is it something else?
And some of my favorite conversations, that I've had with people about the movie, because I want it to be a romp first. I want it to be very entertaining. And if you see something more in it, and if you see something more in Aurora's situation, that it might be a little bit of healing.
We as children aren't always given the skill set or the capacity to deal with our hard emotions. Wether that's anger or fear or frustration. Usually, we're told to suppress them, force them down, ignore them, and that's when they become monsters.
Bryan Fuller: That's when rage follows us into adulthood, and we never learned to navigate those hard feelings as children. So it is unresolved from our childhood, and we carry it.
So I would love the message, at the end of the movie, is that you have to live with your bad feelings. You have to understand your bad feelings, you have to accept and forgive your bad feelings, and accept and forgive yourself to move forward and find peace in your life.
Dust Bunny| Official Trailer
Ten-year-old Aurora has a mysterious neighbor (Mads Mikkelsen) who kills real-life monsters. He’s a hit man for hire. So, when Aurora needs help killing the monster she believes ate her entire family, she procures his services.
Suspecting that her parents may have fallen victim to hit men gunning for him, Aurora’s neighbor guiltily takes the job.
To protect Aurora, he’ll need to contend with an onslaught of assassins, a mysterious associate with killer heels (Sigourney Weaver), and accept that some monsters are real in this fantastical and wickedly inventive feature directorial debut from visionary creator Bryan Fuller.
Learn more, visit - www.dustbunnyfilm.com
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