Dust Bunny is a magical, gay-helmed masterpiece you need to see on the big screen

The concept blends both a child’s worldview and adult themes, and that juxtaposition is part of what makes the film so special and so easily enjoyed across generations. Pair that with Fuller’s visual artistry, gobsmacking sets, and inventive action setpieces, and you have the makings of something we haven’t seen on screen in decades: a horror-fantasy film for children and adults alike, harkening back to their heyday in the 1980s when the likes of Gremlins, Return to Oz, and Ghostbusters thrived.

It’s Amélie meets The Professional, with a bit of Poltergeist thrown into the mix. “The nostalgia is massive,” agrees Dastmalchian, who stars as a rival (and scene-stealing) hitman in the film. “It reminds you...of being transported to the worlds of the Lucases and the Spielbergs. But [it’s also] his own thing. You can't really quantify Bryan Fuller. You can't put him in a box, you can't say, oh, ‘he's the next this, or he's the heir apparent to that,’ because he's carved his own place, and he's done it diligently, consistently over many years, and now bringing it to the movies,” he tells PRIDE.

“I would love for Dust Bunny to be a lot of young people's first horror movie,” Fuller tells PRIDE. “We set out to make a children's movie. We wanted it to be a children's movie. We got an R rating, so you probably shouldn't let me choose what your kids watch, because I'll be more tolerant than the MPAA,” he jokes. “But there's something about those movies growing up, whether it's Gremlins or The Goonies...that had kids at the forefront of these adventures as protagonists and heroes in their own story, in a way that allows us to armor ourselves against the real world.”

The film came from a very personal place for Fuller, who channeled his own challenges growing up into the character of Aurora, who may be unintentionally complicit in the fate that has befallen her parents—and with good reason. “I hope that people who might have had a tricky experience growing up will see themselves in Aurora in a way that they may not be able to articulate,” Fuller explains. Instead, she turns to help from a stranger who goes on to become her found family; again, something that Fuller pulled from his own lived experience.

“I don't know anybody who has a Norman Rockwell kind of life with their family, [it] seems totally alien to me,” he says. “There's something about, particularly as a queer man, growing up when you're not accepted by your family...and society backs that up with their treatment of just anybody who is outside of the norm.” Fuller hopes that this film, like the ones he grew up with, might prove to be comforting. “So much of my love of horror, science fiction, and fantasy growing up wasn’t shared by anybody in my family. Nobody loved movies the way I loved movies, and we don't often talk enough about the medicinal qualities of what movies give to us as audience members, to make us feel seen. Even though it’s kind of a one-way street, it’s a symbiotic relationship that we share with the story that exists just as much in our hearts as it does on screen.”

What screen, then, should you experience Dust Bunny on? I write this in the strongest of terms: the biggest one possible. The visual flair is an absolute feast for the eyes, but it isn’t style over substance; the film invites you to fall into its unique rabbit hole and discover a whole new world—one you won't want to leave.

Dastmalchian couldn’t agree more. “I really want to encourage people, if you're somebody who loves to go to the movies, and you've maybe forgotten why you love going to the movies, and you've kind of stopped going out to the cinema, take a chance with this film. Get your tub of popcorn, get your soda, get your candy, sit there in that holy place we call the theater, and let Bryan Fuller show you what we love about going to the movies.”

Dust Bunny is in theaters now. Watch the trailer below.