VENICE WATCH: ‘Twilight’ star Ashley Greene goes from vampire to zombie in ‘Burying the Ex’

VENICE, Italy – She’s been a vampire and now she’s a zombie, but Ashley Greene says she doesn’t even like horror films.

Greene, who played gentle bloodsucker Alice Cullen in the “Twilight” movies, is the undead ex-girlfriend of the title in “Burying the Ex,” Joe Dante’s zombie rom-com about a woman who comes back from the dead to haunt her former boyfriend.

“When I was young I loved them, but the older I’ve got, and living by myself, they freak me out a little more,” Greene told The Associated Press in Venice, where “Burying the Ex” is playing outside the film festival’s main competition.

“I actually try and steer clear of them for the most part — unless I’m making them,” said Greene, who was also haunted by a spirit summoned in a college experiment in 2012 chiller “The Apparition.”

“I don’t know if I want to meet the person who wrote ‘Saw,’” she said. “How do you come up with something like that?”

“Burying the Ex” is a cheerful take on the genre, as “Gremlins” director Dante mixes laughs with a loving homage to the verve and gore of classic horror. Greene stars alongside Anton Yelchin (“Star Trek”’s Mr. Chekov) and Alexandra Daddario (“True Crime”) in the low-budget feature.

The 27-year-old actress said it was the latest of her “untraditional fantasy horror characters.”

“Alice in ‘Twilight’ is the polar opposite with what you think of when you think of a vampire.” And Evelyn in “Burying the Ex” is “not the mindless, brain-eating zombie you see in most horror films.”

“I got to give this zombie a soul,” she said.

Greene says she enjoys playing villains and “strong, sometimes controversial” characters.

“You’re watching ‘House of Cards,’ and you know that Kevin Spacey’s character, Frank Underwood, is horrible, but you root for him,” she said.

“That’s kind of what I would strive to do with my characters.”

—By Jill Lawless, http://Twitter.com/JillLawless