Among his other accomplishments—writer, director, actor, Marc Jacobs model—Matthew Gray Gubler makes a fantastic idiot.

“You have to kind of cut off your peripheral vision when you play a character like Kyle Orfman,” he says, calling the Straight from Montreal’s Fantasia International Film Festival, “and just see the way he would see the world. Wanting to be a police officer, which is his dream, has made him so that he only sees black or white, and it thus produces this sort of comical guy who’s quick to shoot zombies and quick to overreact. Actually, he’ll shoot anything that moves quickly at him—or slowly.”

It’s a supporting role, but Gubler owns every scene he’s given as the knucklehead older brother to Dane DeHaan’s Zach in the indie-minded zombie rom-com Life After Beth, opening Friday (September 5). Like the rest of his family, Kyle has neurotic predispositions that make him generally useless once the zombie apocalypse hits suburban America. Zach’s problem, meanwhile, is accepting that girlfriend Beth (Aubrey Plaza) is dead at all—despite the rot, stink, and sudden passion for soft jazz.

“It’s a parable of when you’re in a relationship that’s dying and one person’s trying to make it work and the other person is completely out of it, as Aubrey is as a zombie,” Gubler offers. “And you’re the person trying to keep it together and breathe life into it and keep it from sort of cannibalizing itself.”

Speaking of autocannibalism, how does the actor (a genre fanboy who cites Donald Pleasance and Vincent Price as his favourite actors) feel about the dwindling returns offered by zombie movies in general?

“I think anything can be added to and improved upon,” he answers. “I’m an eternal optimist, so I don’t think any genre is played out yet, but also I think [writer-director] Jeff Baena has an incredibly unique voice. He wrote I Heart Huckabees, which, I think, is another masterpiece. They’re hard to explain, his films, and that’s what drew me to it. I love what he’s doing.”

Fans of Huckabees will certainly appreciate what Baena has drummed up with Beth, which is populated with great actors—let’s throw John C. Reilly and Cheryl Hines into the mix—playing sharply written middle-class fuck-ups. Fans of horror movies who felt that the zom rom-com came into being undead on arrival with 2013’s forgettable Warm Bodies will appreciate the offbeat voodoo Baena has worked on his film.

“I don’t even know how to describe the movie,” Gubler says. “Instead of being like every other movie about zombies, where you’re focused on the guys with the machetes and the guns, you’re looking at the same world three doors down the street through the eyes of a very funny Jewish family who are going through an intense breakup. There just happens to be a background with some crazy carnage and zombies.”

Not to mention a fabulous cameo from Garry Marshall.

“I know!” Gubler exclaims. “And I get to shoot him, too!”