By: Andrew Wing

Master is a 2022 American psychological horror-thriller film written and directed by Mariama Diallo in her directorial debut. The film stars Regina Hall (Girls Trip, The Hate U Give), Zoe Renee, and Amber Gray (Hadestown musical).

The film follows three women as they strive to find their place at an elite Northeastern university as old as the country. However, when anonymous racist attacks target a Black freshman (Renee), who insists she is being haunted by ghosts of the school’s pasts, each woman must determine where the real menace lies.

Master had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on January 21, 2022, and was released in the United States via Prime Video on March 18, 2022.

THE GOOD

While you can go ahead and put it on the record that the horror genre is probably my least favorite of movie genres, you can also put it on the record that psychological thriller is one of my favorites. With Master, we get a psychological horror-thriller film that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival where it received generally favorable reviews. It reminds me of Hereditary, another psychological horror film from a newcomer director that premiered at Sundance, and let’s just say that film was pretty good and it was easily one of the best horror films of that decade. So with all that said, is Master on track to be the 2022 version of Hereditary? Keep reading to find out!

My answer is maybe. We will really have to wait and see, and while I don’t know if I see Master being one of the best horror films of this decade when I look back eight years from now, I definitely do see Master being regarded as one of the best horror films of this year for sure. And a big reason why I say that is because of what Mariama Diallo does with her direction in just her debut. I saw online that this film took inspiration from The Shining, one of my favorite movies ever, regardless of genre, and I could definitely see it in this film. It showed the most just by how creepy and scary this film was. I will talk more about what I liked about Diallo’s direction aesthetically later in the review, but I think she definitely passed the test as a director in her first outing. I judge a horror film on if I can watch it at night or not, and with this, I had to hit the pause button at night and have it wait until the sun was out, and that’s a huge testament to Diallo. Simply put, this film is terrifying at times, and I can’t wait to see what she does next.

Not only was Diallo’s direction impressive but her writing here was astounding. On the surface, it’s a social horror, but deeper down it’s a damning examination of racism on college campuses, and not just what one student experiences, but how a whole institution is tainted by this white supremacy. All the white administrative figures in the film refuse to see or acknowledge it, but all the people of color face it every day, and the film does a great job at painting these universities as being defensive, unwilling to change, and even worse, as using black staff members as tools to further uphold and bolster the institution to meet the modern-day demands of diversity and inclusion. So yeah, it’s a heavy film to watch because of the screenplay, but it’s a great script and it does a good job validating these experiences people have as they step onto a majority-white campus.

Now to the performances. All of the performances were amazing here, but the three main players that portray the three women were fantastic. First, with Regina Hall, she gave a great performance and I was shocked by how good she was. When I think of her, I immediately think of comedy, but in this, she shows that she is an excellent dramatic actress. Next with Amber Gray as she played the biracial English teacher. She was solid, especially towards the end when she is given more dramatic scenes. And lastly with Zoe Renee as she portrayed the new student on this campus. I was super impressed by her, and something tells me this won’t be the last horror film we’ll see her in because she was incredible in this.

Lastly, and you knew this was coming if you have read any of my reviews, but this film looked really nice. It was filmed in New York, so you can’t go wrong there, and the film’s general look reminded me a lot of another great horror film, Get Out, just with the way it was lit. All in all, I was blown away by Charlotte Hornsby’s cinematography here, and I will keep an eye on her. Now I said I would touch on Diallo’s direction aesthetically, so here it is. In film, especially in films of this genre, a great way to build tension in a scene is to leverage the shot selection to individual shots, and in Master, Mariama Diallo frames each character individually and it adds so much tension to every scene. By shooting a single character in each frame, each moment built on the next one as the audiences awaited to hear and see the next character’s reaction, and it was just so well done from start to finish.

THE BAD

There’s no denying that I really enjoyed the film, but there was one thing that really brought it down in my opinion, and that would be the fact that it focuses too much on the supernatural horror elements more than the social horror. The social horror elements were what really terrified me here, and I get that the supernatural played a very heavy role in the plot, but I still felt it was a little unnecessary by the time the film concluded. It was just clunky, and I didn’t see how the supernatural related to the social themes so that dropped the film some points for sure. I just don’t know why they went that way, but it was still an overall solid film.

Another thing I’ll bring up that was disappointing when it comes to Master is that it really slows down in the second act. The first third of the film is amazing and its final act as a whole is superb despite me not loving the ending, but the middle is pretty messy. That’s also the same time where they bounce around between social horror and supernatural the most, but I’d be lying if I said the film didn’t lose me midway through it a little bit. You’ll see my score shortly, but I think if that middle was a little better and not so slow, this movie’s score could’ve been much higher.

THE VERDICT

With what will definitely be one of the best directorial debuts of 2022 from Mariama Diallo, Master is a psychological horror-thriller that breaks down a New England university that claims to be one focused on diversity and inclusion but is rather a foundation of hatred and white liberalism. The performances are great, especially Regina Hall, but I really loved how Diallo confronted this particular issue in a way that I haven’t seen another movie do. It gave me a different perspective which is important.

Sure, they overfocused on the supernatural horror rather than the real-life ones, it’s pretty bleak, and also very damning, but it’s a good film and I’m certain it will be one of the best horror films of 2022 by year’s end.