Master has an intriguing enough premise but it is far too convoluted with unnecessary plot lines and distracting cinematography.
Master starts off with such an interesting premise but unfortunately it ends up feeling too convoluted and like it could not decide what genre it wanted to be. There are some seriously creepy and terrifying moments that I enjoyed, but there is a side plot that is completely unnecessary and in all honestly, it ruins the ending.
This movie focuses on a New England college with a history of racism that seems to have never left. There are only a handful of Black students, an this story follows one of them, a Freshman named Jasmine (Zoe Renee). Her classmates are unwelcoming and downright rude at times, and she almost immediately butts heads with one of her professors, Liv Beckman (Amber Gray), another Black woman.
The title Master comes from the other main character, Gail Bishop (Regina Hall), because she was just made Master, or dean of students. These three women are all struggling with a feeling of not belonging throughout the entire movie.
My hands down favorite parts revolve around Jasmine, who not only feels like an outcast among the other students, she seems to be bothered by a strange entity. She spends a lot of her time in the library reading the notes of a former student, one who lost her life on campus years ago who also claims to have been followed by the spirit of a witch.
The campus was built on a gallows hill, where witches were hung, and there are rumors that the spirit one of them, who died at 3:33am comes back to take others with her. These are the parts of the movie that really worked for me. There are a lot of supernatural elements mixed with jump scares and creepy happenings.
Through all of this Jasmine has to also deal with the treatment that she is getting from much of the school, which makes it clear they are not used to seeing Black people around the halls. There are a lot of racist messages here, but Master should have decided if it was going to pursue that or the supernatural thriller genre. There is certainly a way they could have been blended well, but Master doesn’t accomplish it.
While these moments bleed into Gail’s journey, they aren’t as effective here. The plot points trying to connect almost feels forced, but the real misstep is almost all of Liv’s story. At first she feels like a supporting role, and plays her part well in Jasmine’s struggle. But the final moments of the movie are taken over by some extremely confusing and unnecceary developments.
The cinematography is jarring and doesn’t work well for the story that is trying to be told here. It is distracting and another element that pulls viewers out of the movie to add to the list.
Master does try to explore the haunted past of the university, but it spends far too much time in the present to truly do this justice. Jasmine’s story is truly haunting and terrifying, but the other two don’t ever fully work, and in turn take away from the movie as a whole. It is a bummer because there is such potential here, but ultimately, it all falls flat.
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Rating: 2 out of 5
About Master
At an elite New England university built on the site of a Salem-era gallows hill, three women strive to find their place. Gail Bishop (Regina Hall), just instated as “Master,” a dean of students, discovers what lies behind the school’s immaculate facade; first-year student Jasmine Moore (Zoe Renee) confronts a new home that is cold and unwelcoming; and literature professor Liv Beckman (Amber Gray) collides with colleagues who question her right to belong. Navigating politics and privilege, they encounter increasingly terrifying manifestations of the school’s haunted past… and present.
