The #1 Horror Movie on HBO Max Is Directed by ‘Hannibal’ Creator; Stars Sigourney Weaver
Bryan Fuller has at long last unleashed his debut feature film. The horror hero has been producing some of the most important genre television of the past few decades, with showstoppers like Hannibal, Pushing Daisies, Dead Like Me, and Wonderfalls. The visionary creator is also attached to a new series with horror legend Clive Barker of Hellraiser and Candyman fame.
Yet, after years of producing killer TV, it took Fuller until now to release Dust Bunny, his first-ever movie as a director. Worth the wait too, if you ask me. While Dust Bunny may not be a clear-cut, straightforward horror release, it still has plenty of spooky genre goodness to go around.
Part gateway horror, part vintage action-adventure, Fuller’s film wears its influences like gemstones on its white-fur collar sleeves. And now that the magical release has hit streamers, it’s hopped its way to the very top spot on the HBO Max streaming charts. I can’t say I’m all that surprised, considering the talent behind the camera. Fuller seems fine-tuned to what makes gateway horror work.
“I love gateway horror,” Fuller told me during our conversation out of his film’s TIFF premiere. “I love Return to Oz, and I love Gremlins and Poltergeist… that Amblin brand of horror. The Goonies, while not quite horror, is definitely a thriller. Those were the movies I grew up on, and I don’t really see them in the marketplace anymore—movies that are as much for kids as they are for adults, and that adults can enjoy just as much.”
Dust Bunny definitely fits that mold. The story of a young girl who teams up with a hitman (Mads Mikkelsen) to fight a monster, it looks like The Professional by way of Pushing Daisies, with notes of stuff like Return to Oz thrown in. It’s a remarkably versatile film that kids can enjoy alongside their parents, and as a piece of gateway horror, it absolutely works. The movie costars the legendary Sigourney Weaver in a villainous role for the books.
In my 4-star review of the film out of its TIFF Midnight Madness World Premiere I wrote that “like a dazzling, mildly dangerous display of backyard fireworks, Bryan Fuller’s Dust Bunny is charming and stylish gateway horror.”
Dust Bunny is now streaming on HBO Max.
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