Editor’s Note: For Freeline Media movie critic Mike Fried, has been checking out what’s new on HBO Max. Turns out its Dust Bunny, a cool monster under the bed flick! Check out Mike’s review!

By MIKE FRIED

Dust Bunny (HBO Max)

*** 1/2

Eight-year-old Aurora believes there is a monster hiding under her bed. She sees her “intriguing neighbor” (IN) and is mesmerized by him so she follows him to Chinatown where she sees him slaying a dragon (actually people in a dragon puppet costume). When she gets home, her parents are gone so she asks IN for his help in slaying the monster under her bed. He agrees to help because he thinks that her parents were targeted by people looking for him. 

This movie works so well because of its two leads, veteran Mads Mikkelsen and newcomer Sophie Sloan, as well as excellent direction from first time director Bryan Fuller, who created the TV show Hannibal (which also starred Mikkelsen.)

Mikkelsen especially leans into the comedy elements well, especially after The Green Butchers, Riders of Justice and Another Round. 

The concept of “monster under the bed” is not a new one. It is rooted in human evolution and evinces a deep seated fear of the unknown. But that’s a different story for a different day. As far as movies go, it’s been a concept that has been explored since at least the 1980s, if not before. 

But what this movie does is so fully lean into he concept that it crosses several types of films: monster horror, action, horror and thriller — and does so with a wink and a nod to the audience. An assassin tracks Aurora to her closet. We see the bed move up as the monster underneath, now large, attacks her behind a closed closet door.  

After IN kills an assassin, he strings up the dead body. When Aurora asks him why, he matters-of-factly says that he needs to drain the body of fluids before he cuts up the body so he can dispose of it. After he does so, IN asks her if she wants to help wrap up the body pieces, and she gladly accepts.  It turns out that IN is more of a parent than any of her foster parents ever have been to her. 

Sigourney Weaver is on hand as a professional acquaintance of Intriguing Neighbor who lets IN know that everyone is trying to kill him. And she looks like she is having as much fun as Mikkelsen and Sloan.  And David Dastmalchian shows up as one of the assassins.  

Filmed in Budapest, the movie has one glaring error — there is no New York City apartment that looks the way Aurora’s apartment looks. Well, there are … but given the fact that Aurora is being raised by foster parents, it is unlikely that they could afford such a place. Nevertheless, the production design is gorgeous and does a lot to highlight the uneasiness of IN’s and Aurora’s individual situations.  And the cinematography by Nicole Hirsch Whitaker really allows all the over the top set lighting to stand out.  The special effects are really outstanding and one might even think that there really is a monster under the bed. 

And if your kids aren’t too young and don’t scare so easily, then it truly can be a family horror film.  

But for us grownups it’s all about Mads!!!

WATCH IT!

Michael Fried has no formal training in movies, except having watched over 26,000+ movies — if not more — in his 60-plus years on this planet, starting with Goldfinger as his first cinema experience. He knows what he likes and he knows what he doesn’t like, and it’s quite often different from the conventional wisdom. He knows that the best franchise is Godzilla and he loves action movies and comedies. He has not been nominated for any awards except some boring insurance awards which has no applicability to movies (with the possible exceptions of Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity and John Cassavettes’ Big Trouble). He is part of a team that won the 1980 SUNY Albany Trivia content by correctly guessing the question, “Who played the president of Klopstockia in Million Dollar Legs?” So he has that going for him, which is nice.

Contact Mike at moviemike3@yahoo.com and mike.fried@yahoo.com.