Sundance 2022 Film Festival Premiere – I love all movies about witchcraft, from cheesy The Craft knockoffs to the upper echelons of cinema where Suspiria lives; and having watched just about everything in between, I cannot say that I’ve seen a witch film quite like Master. Written and directed by Mariama Diallo as her feature debut, Master is a bubbling witch’s brew of cultures, time periods, and ideologies that all converge upon a university serving as a microcosm of America — an unflattering snapshot of all its problems with class and race inequality.

Master stars Zoe Renee as Jasmine Moore, a freshman settling into her new life at an elite university in New England. Similarly, new professor Gail Bishop (Regina Hall) is also moving in, having been hired as the first African American “Master” at the university overseeing Jasmine’s residence hall. Jasmine unknowingly walks into the campus’ most famous urban legend when she occupies a dormitory that is the scene of many suicides. The two meet when Jasmine files a complaint against the only other African American professor on campus for giving her an undeserved F, but this injustice is only the start of the things that will haunt Jasmine, as she begins to feel and see the presence of the fabled witch who caused the infamous suicides. Dr. Bishop does everything in her power to protect Jasmine, though she can hardly save herself from the haunting memories that have a grip on the campus.

Diallo effectively captures the everyday treachery that is the experience of BIPOC persons in America — the movie may in fact be triggering to those who exist as a minority in majority-occupied spaces. The everyday micro-aggressions, everyday faux wokeness, everyday dehumanizations, everyday battle with self-identity and self-esteem — being on the receiving end of racism is truly like being haunted by an unseeable ghost, or in the case of this movie, a witch, where there is a horror plaguing you that you cannot physically fight or escape. To take a line from the movie that perfectly summarizes this feeling of helplessness — it doesn’t matter where one goes, it’s everywhere.

Master left me feeling emotionally drained in the most wonderfully cathartic way — the movie is both emotionally triggering and also truly horrifying. Mixing racism with surreal cinematography made Master‘s already sinister scenes all the more terrifying, and Zoe Renee’s doe-eyed looks of sadness and terror helped each scene to stick its landing. Director Mariama Diallo played with shadow throughout the film, hardly revealing the terror itself — much like the intangible monster of racism. I enjoyed every single character that Mariama Diallo put into this film, but primarily the black women, who depicted a wide range of emotions and oft untapped topics such as internalized racism and colorism.

Master is a visually enchanting occult horror that shows the slow decay of the psyche when subjected to an inescapable monster — be it racism or a witch. The trauma of coming to this revelation is written across the faces of every African American woman in the film, who each gave stunning and memorable performances. Master is one of the scariest and anxiety-inducing witchcraft movies I have seen, and not only because of the racists lurking the halls of the university but because of Mariama Diallo’s scare tactics of using the power of visual suggestion along with the mystery and creepiness of folktales. The superb acting and directing cannot be understated, each scene was filled with subdued tension until it was finally released with Master‘s bittersweet ending. Premiering at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival, Master will be available on March 18 on Prime Video for all to enjoy!

8.25 out of 10