Simon Pegg plays a paranoid writer in the trailer for a A Fantastic Fear Of Everything

Simon Pegg has proven equally adept at playing both straight man and comic relief, but his latest film, A Fantastic Fear Of Everything, gives the British actor the chance to play something a little more eccentric. Pegg stars as Jack, an unpublished children’s author-turned-crime novelist who's paranoid about serial killers and terrified of laundromats. The trailer for the “semicomedy” suggests it's a bit Terry Gilliam and a bit Wes Anderson, with a little Neil Gaiman thrown in as well.

Written and directed by former Kula Shaker frontman Crispian Mill—and co-directed by music video director Chris Hopewell—the film premiered to rather tepid reviews in the UK in 2012. It debuts in the U.S. on VOD January 7, 2014 and will have a limited theatrical release starting February 7, 2014.