Master, the debut feature by director Mariama Diallo, will premiere globally on Prime Video on March 18. Starring Regina Hall, Zoe Renee and Amber Gray, the film is currently screening at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival.
In addition to starring in the film, Hall also serves as an executive producer on Master, an occult thriller with underlying socio-political themes. The film tells the story of three African American women at a largely white New England university. While one of them (Hall) is the first Black woman to hold the post of “Master” of a residence hall, another is an “energetic and optimistic” freshman (Amber Gray) who moves into a dorm room that is rumored to be haunted, and the third (Zoe Renee) is a professor up for tenure.
In her glowing Sundance review, Collider’s Therese Lacson wrote that Master “threads the needle of presenting complex ideas deftly enough in a way that doesn't feel like preaching.” Describing the film as “masterful,” she wrote that the film is a potent mix of “horror, drama, and social critique.”
Master is the latest entry in an increasingly impactful new wave of allegorical horror films about race. The emergence of this particular wave can largely be credited to Jordan Peele’s Oscar-winning feature Get Out, which he followed up with the critically and commercially successful Us. Just last year, director Nia DaCosta released her re-imagining of Candyman, which was produced by Peele. While Candyman was well-received (and relatively successful at the box office), the Prime Video series Them proved to be rather divisive.
Of course, the most horrific thing about these titles—beyond anything that we saw in them—is the fact that what each of them has to say is just as relevant today as what George A. Romero’s classic Night of the Living Dead (perhaps inadvertently) ended up discussing back in the ‘60s.
Also starring Talia Ryder and Talia Balsam, Master will land on Prime Video on March 18. Check out the official synopsis below:
In writer-director Mariama Diallo’s debut feature, Master, three women strive to find their place at a prestigious New England university whose frosty elitism may disguise something more sinister. Professor Gail Bishop (Regina Hall) has recently been promoted to “Master” of a residence hall, the first time at storied Ancaster College that a Black woman has held the post. Determined to breathe new life into a centuries-old tradition, Gail soon finds herself wrapped up in the trials and tribulations of Jasmine Moore (Zoe Renee), an energetic and optimistic Black freshman. Jasmine’s time at Ancaster hits a snag early on when she’s assigned a dorm room that is rumored to be haunted. Things get worse when Jasmine clashes in the classroom with Liv Beckman (Amber Gray), a professor in the middle of her own racially charged tenure review. As Gail tries to maintain order and fulfill the duties of a Master, the cracks begin to show in Ancaster’s once-immaculate facade. After a career spent fighting to make it into Ancaster’s inner circle, Gail is confronted with the horrifying prospect of what lies beneath, her question ultimately becoming not whether the school is haunted, but by whom.