Watch the Trailer for ‘Master,’ a New Academic Horror Film

Three Black women navigating life at an elite university must contend with its troubling history in a new horror movie where race, class, and gender intersect against a backdrop of old academe.

On Wednesday, Amazon Studios unveiled the official trailer for Master, which was featured at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. The film stars Regina Hall as Professor Gail Bishop, who has been recently promoted to “master” of a residence hall — the first Black woman at the ancient institution to hold the position. The academic title “master” comes from centuries-old English universities and has been discontinued by some real-life American colleges, including Harvard University, because of its racist connotations of the slavery era.

Bishop’s path soon becomes entangled with a promising first-year student (played by Zoe Renee), who is assigned a dorm room that is rumored to be haunted, and with a professor (Amber Gray) who alleges that her tenure bid is being thwarted by racism.

Set at a historic, predominantly white, and fictional university in New England, dubbed Ancaster, the thriller examines institutional racism in academe, with the “question ultimately becoming not whether the school is haunted, but by whom,” according to a synopsis provided by Amazon Studios. It was written and directed by Mariama Diallo.

The film, which is rated R, will premiere on Prime Video and in some theaters on March 18. Take a look at the trailer here: