Master

In writer/director Mariama Diallo’s debut feature Master, three women strive to find their place at a prestigious New England university built on the site of a Salem-era gallows hill. Navigating politics and privilege, they encounter increasingly terrifying manifestations of the school’s haunted past… and present. 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 who’s been 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. 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. (Dir. by Mariama Diallo, 2022, USA, 91 mins., Rated R)