In the new Amazon Studios psychological thriller “Master” from 34-year-old writer and director Mariama Diallo, horror becomes a powerful vehicle to express how centuries of racism have infected an elite Northeastern college campus in ways both micro and macro.
“Master” continues a tradition established with Jordan Peele’s groundbreaking 2017 psychological horror film “Get Out,” which also used the horror genre to intensify the sense of isolation and terror a Black photographer (Daniel Kaluuya) begins to feel while staying at his white girlfriend’s remote upstate New York family home.
Rising star Zoe Renee, raised in Fayetteville, Georgia, brings a complex blend of vulnerability and defiance to her starring role as Jasmine Moore, a freshman who is one of just eight Black students on the predominately white Ancaster College campus that serves as “Master’s” eerie set piece.
Diallo’s tense collegiate thriller draws from the Senegalese-born director’s own rich cinematic vocabulary as well as her experiences of racism while an undergraduate at another esteemed, history-laden institution, Yale. A disturbing frat party that turns in an instant from jovial to menacing was drawn, says Renee, from an incident in Diallo’s own time at Yale.
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
Adding to Jasmine’s sense of otherness on a campus whose white students seem to have all summered and schooled together, is a disturbing school legend that a 17th-century witch haunts the campus and has driven other students to violent ends.
Diallo, a film studies major at Yale, prepared her cast for the experience of shooting “Master” with a crash course in psychological horror. Even before production began there were screenings of “Get Out,” the Swedish horror fantasy “Let the Right One In,” Stanley Kubrick’s marriage of horror and domestic violence 1980′s “The Shining” and Roman Polanski’s “Rosemary’s Baby.” Like the Mia Farrow character, who gets a Vidal Sassoon short crop in that 1968 pregnancy horror classic, Jasmine even has a radical change of hairstyle as the story progresses, to signal her emotional distress.
“Mariama is a film buff through and through,” says Renee. “She loves film and is so educated in the subject, and I think she wanted our entire cast to explore the wide range of horror and what we were about to dive into.”
“She wanted us to be really comfortable. We spoke on Zoom pretty much every day over breakfast and talked and walked through what Jasmine’s thought process would be.”
“And, you know, because of that preparation, we were all able to go on to the first day of set, feeling so good and ready.”
Credit: Linda Kallerus
Credit: Linda Kallerus
Regina Hall stars alongside Renee as Professor Gail Bishop, the new Ancaster “master” who is charged with both teaching and mentoring the incoming freshman class. Gail also takes a personal interest in Jasmine’s growing isolation as dark supernatural forces and a foreboding sense of racial violence haunt her.
Diving into the world of “Master” where Gail and Jasmine are both outsiders on a campus where whiteness is the norm, only reminded Renee of how unique her Atlanta upbringing has been.
Raised in a city with a proud civil rights history, black leadership, creative class and HBCUs that offer inclusion instead of isolation, Renee had to ponder how alienating an experience like Ancaster might be for a student who doesn’t fit the WASP-y mold.
Credit: Courtesy of Amazon Studios
Credit: Courtesy of Amazon Studios
Renee got a taste for the value of HBCUs when she worked on the 2017 BET TV series “The Quad,” filmed on the Morehouse campus, about students attending the fictional Georgia A&M.
“It made me think of the importance of HBCUs. You know, it always feels great being in a place where you do not feel isolated, you don’t feel other. And I think the beauty of HBCUs and life on campus there is that there are so many people that reflect who you are and encourage the parts of you that are the most honest.”
Renee says that growing up in Atlanta, her parents encouraged her and her brother’s creativity and a life in the arts. Though Renee admits that her father Speech — one of the founding members of the renowned hip hop group Arrested Development — may have been “a little nervous” about her pursuit of an acting career because of his own experiences in the music industry, “he was able to steer us in the right direction.” And despite a string of roles that have taken her outside Atlanta, including the 2018 coming-of-age drama “Jinn,” Renee remains aware of the grounding and uniqueness her upbringing in Atlanta provided.
“I’ve been in the city my entire life,” says Renee. “This city truly will always be home for me. I can’t tell you how many people have told me ‘move to LA, move to New York.’”
“[But] I just feel like Atlanta people are my people. So you know, I’d rather stay here and fly out when I need to. But I always know this is my spot.”
“Master” screens at Landmark Midtown Art and on Prime Video.
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