Dust Bunny comes to us from writer/director/producer Bryan Fuller. Watching the film, it’s abundantly clear that this came from the same man who was responsible for both “Pushing Daisies” and “Hannibal”. It’s also painfully obvious that this is Fuller’s first attempt at a feature film.

The plot concerns Aurora (Sophie Sloan), a young girl scared to death of the monster living under her bed. Luckily, she has a neighbor (known only as Resident 5B, played by Mads Mikkelsen) who just happens to be a monster hunter. Or so she thinks. Thus Aurora steals from a church collection plate to hire 5B to help kill the monster. (In her defense, she’s literally scared for her life and the monster has already killed both her parents by this point.)

The plot is further complicated by other characters, played by the likes of Sigourney Weaver, David Dastmalchian, Rebecca Henderson, and Sheila Atim. Are they hitmen? Monsters? Monster hunters? Law enforcement agents? Hell if I know! Seriously, I saw the movie and I’m still not 100 percent sure how many of these characters were lying about who and what they were. And I expect that viewers will be sharply divided on the subject of whether that’s a bug or a feature.

Here’s the problem: 5B keeps on insisting that monsters don’t exist. Everyone in the movie keeps insisting that monsters don’t exist. No matter how many times Aurora swears up and down, stating for a rock-solid certainty that there’s a bloodthirsty predator under her floorboards, nobody believes her story. Unless maybe they’re only claiming not to believe her story, trying — for whatever reason — to dissuade her from knowing or believing in the existence of monsters.

Everyone seems oddly just a little too insistent that there is no monster in Ba Sing Se. Thus we’re left with the question of what’s really going on and what secrets the adults might be hiding. We’re also left with questions about the secrets Aurora might be hiding. Because yeah, we do eventually learn she’s not telling us the full story up front.

And when the movie is finally over, we’re still left with more questions than answers.

Don’t get me wrong, I like what the filmmakers were going for. What we’ve got here is a children’s fantasy about how people (most especially grown-ups) constantly lie to themselves and others to cope with fear and lack of control. I like the spin on the classic trope of adults who never listen to kids, against all warning and evidence that something awful is happening. For that matter, I like how the plot and premise incorporated such childhood pastimes as monsters under the bed, pretending the floor is lava, etc.

I appreciate a fantasy spin on the blurred line between people and monsters (see also: Pan’s Labyrinth, or pretty much anything else in GDT’s filmography). Most of all, I love how the heightened whimsical tone (“Pushing Daisies”) balanced a darker and more threatening tone (“Hannibal”). Hell, I don’t even mind the slipshod CGI, as going for full photorealism wouldn’t have been the right move here.

No, the big problem here is the world-building. Quite notably, the first act of the movie is presented with virtually zero spoken dialogue, dependent on the score, the sound effects, the actors’ facial expressions, etc. to carry the drama. The unfortunate drawback is that we get roughly a third of the movie without any firm idea of what this world is and how it works. Imagine my disappointment when the characters finally start talking with any consistency, and they outright refuse to discuss the existence of monsters, monster hunters, or how they work in this setting.

Frankly, I would’ve respected the filmmakers far more if they had stuck with the “minimal dialogue” gimmick through the entire movie. Sure, that would’ve compounded the error of opaque world-building, but there’s no going halfway on a gimmick like this. Do it or don’t, but it doesn’t count either way unless you fucking commit.

I know the filmmakers are trying to keep it ambiguous as to whether or not the monsters really exist, and how in on that secret the adult characters are. Unfortunately, that ambiguity means we spend half the movie wondering if the adult characters are hiding something or if they are that incompetent in the face of so much weird shit happening. Alas, just as soon as the runtime wore out, the filmmakers went with the most boring and least informative answer possible. Ugh.

It’s not just the world-building, either — the very tone keeps unraveling as the film keeps going. Sure, the film starts out as a dark little children’s fable. But things steadily degrade until the third-act, when we’ve got four-letter words, rampant gunplay, and brutally gruesome onscreen deaths. The shift in tone is so jarring, I’m not entirely clear as to who exactly this picture was made for.

Dust Bunny is a highly ambitious cinematic experiment, but a failed one. Unfortunately, Bryan Fuller had to learn the hard way that crafting a balanced fantasy movie — not too light for adults and not too dark for kids — without adapting an existing IP is really goddamn difficult. What’s more, Fuller pulled the classic mistake of crafting a story that’s deliberately ambiguous, delivering a product that’s unclear and aimless in execution. You’d think a writer of Fuller’s prodigious TV experience would’ve been able to make that work, but it’s a difficult trick and more talented writers have failed at it.

I’d recommend it for home video, but I’ve got a hunch that Fuller has a better movie in him. Let’s wait until his sophomore feature and see what happens then.