Mas­ter

Writer/​director Maria­ma Dial­lo places elite estab­lish­ments under the micro­scope in her debut fea­ture, Mas­ter. Blend­ing hor­ror with social com­men­tary, the film even­ly, explores the inter­sec­tion of race, class and gen­der through the expe­ri­ences of two Black women.

Gail Bish­op (Regi­na Hall) has just been appoint­ed Mas­ter at the pres­ti­gious, pre­dom­i­nant­ly white Ancast­er Col­lege, a fic­tion­al New Eng­land uni­ver­si­ty steeped in rich Amer­i­can his­to­ry. Gail, mean­while, is the first Black per­son to hold the position.

What also char­ac­teris­es Ancast­er is the ancient lore that sur­rounds it hav­ing been built near where the Salem Witch Tri­als took place. Accord­ing to leg­end, a woman accused and hung for witch­craft now haunts the grounds, reveal­ing them­selves to select­ed stu­dents. Upon her arrival, fresh­man Jas­mine Moore (Zoe Renee) becomes entan­gled in Ancaster’s sto­ried tale when she dis­cov­ers the room she’s stay­ing in was pre­vi­ous­ly home to the school’s first Black stu­dent who killed her­self there in the 1960s.

Anoth­er malig­nant force still lin­ger­ing across the cam­pus is the spec­tre of racism. As both Gail and Jas­mine nav­i­gate their envi­ron­ment, every­day inter­ac­tions are tinged with con­de­scen­sion and dis­re­spect. Jas­mine is stopped from enter­ing a par­ty until the white friend she walked in with turns back to vouch for her. In dis­cussing the prospects of a col­league of colour for a tenured posi­tion, Gail’s col­leagues feel the need to reaf­firm that a tenured pro­fes­sor must be appoint­ed on merit.

Through the var­ied spec­trum of micro-aggres­sions both women encounter, Mas­ter exists in a con­stant state of unease, mir­ror­ing the trep­i­da­tion recog­nis­able to many Black women in pre­dom­i­nant­ly white spaces. It’s quick­ly estab­lished that Jasmine’s white room­mate, Amelia (Talia Ryder), and the group of friends who sprawl ter­ri­to­ri­al­ly across Jasmine’s bed, all exist with­in a long-estab­lished social set, sug­gest­ing that ​‘oth­er­ness’, for those who aren’t wealthy and white, is in the fab­ric of these institutions.

Where Dial­lo is astute in her depic­tion of both Gail and Jasmine’s expe­ri­ences, the film’s more super­nat­ur­al ele­ments fail to land. Shad­owy fig­ures stalk win­dows and hands emerge from under the bed as both women are unset­tled by a mys­te­ri­ous pres­ence, but the major­i­ty of these moments seem more in line with scenes from a bad teen slash­er flick.

Mas­ter is best viewed as an intrigu­ing rumi­na­tion on the insid­i­ous­ness of racism. Buoyed by a strong per­for­mance from Regi­na Hall, it’s a thought-pro­vok­ing debut from Dial­lo, but one, unfor­tu­nate­ly, weighed down by hokey jump scares that under­mine its much more inter­est­ing commentary.

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