Best known for starring in Atonement and Suffragette, the
Actor has now turned to writing and directing with a spine-chilling film. What possessed her?
![‘Women like to be afraid’: why Romola Garai swapped costume dramas for gory horror](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/8206608e187a4fcc486d7abd6e41cb569a394610/0_285_6240_3744/master/6240.jpg?width=1200&height=630&quality=85&auto=format&fit=crop&overlay-align=bottom%2Cleft&overlay-width=100p&overlay-base64=L2ltZy9zdGF0aWMvb3ZlcmxheXMvdGctZGVmYXVsdC5wbmc&enable=upscale&s=278f0d54c032a35733a52692d2b82eb9)
I meet Romola Garai in a velvet-sofaed establishment in central
London, which feels radically incongruous. Not because one wouldn’t expect to find an actor of nearly 20 years on such a sofa, but because an hour before, I’d been forcing myself to watch the gory centrepiece moment of her new horror film, Amulet, which marks a dramatic departure into writing and directing.
Amulet lulls you into a fragile sense of security with its arthousey tension, beautiful, subtle performances and lingering shots of decaying wallpaper. When it explodes into body horror – toilets birthing hideous, hairless newborn creatures, a prelude to the worse gestations to come – well, you’d be tempted to cover your eyes if it wasn’t all so horribly compelling.