Regina Hall Stars in Horror Film "Master" at Sundance Film Festival 2022
Regina Hall stars as the dean of students at a prestigious university in the film “Master.” (Picture by Cinetic Media)
The films “Emergency” and “Master” were screened during The Sundance Film Festival 2022, which featured plots that focused on the struggles of Black Americans in today’s society.
Master showed Black women's lengths to achieve success in a supernatural horror film. The Sundance Film starred Regina Hall and was directed by Mariama Diallo.
Hall’s character Gail Bishop is appointed to ‘Master’ or Dean of Students at a prestigious white-dominated college. She is haunted by moths, a decaying apartment, and visions of a slave maid catering to a white family. Despite the visions plaguing her and trying to connect with her colleagues, Bishop pushes through.
At the same time, a Black student named Jasmine Moore comes on campus as the only Black student in her first-year class. She ends up living in the same dorm room as a rumored witch that takes Black students. Nightmares and images end up scaring Moore in her dreams and in the real world as she navigates college life as the only Black freshman.
Both women are successful Black women who don’t quite fit in with their white counterparts but fight to prove their status at the university.
Moore is constantly bullied by her roommates, her so-called friends, and a professor who doesn’t respect her in the classroom. She struggles to fit in and be accepted by her white classmates. She sometimes overlooks the racism she endures from the white professors and the distance and judgmental looks from the Black cafeteria workers.
College freshman Jasmine Moore navigates the supernatural and college life in the film “Master.” (Picture by Cinetec Media)
Bishop constantly has to prove that she’s fit for her new role, especially since she’s the school’s first Black dean. In addition, the university uses Bishop’s position to introduce the school's diversity initiative. Hall’s character becomes less hopeful about the administrators’ roles in the eight minority students' college lives. Throughout the film, she realizes that she is a mere pawn.
“I was never the master of this school; I was the maid,” Bishop said. “Here to clean up their mess.”
At the end of the film, Moore succumbed to the bullying. Bishop, however, was able to walk away from the school and leave her position.
In director Carey Williams’s film Emergency, he also showed the struggles of being a minority at an all-white university.
Two best friends, Kunle and Sean, are graduating from a university and want to celebrate their last few weeks together. However, before heading out for the night, they and their Mexican roommate, Carlos, end up finding an unconscious white girl in their house.
Three friends experience the night of their lives in the film “Emergency.” (Picture by Sundance Institute)
The night ends with the friends trying to find the best solution to get her safely out of the house without anyone suspecting they are kidnapping her. While Kunle wants to call the cops right away, Sean states that it wouldn’t be good for the three of them to put themselves in a situation to be arrested or shot by the police. So, in the end, Sean left the two other guys to take the girl to the hospital. And Kunle ends up with a gun in his face and thrown to the ground because the cops thought he was holding the girl hostage.
The three college students realize how real and unfair it is for minorities like them and how they have each other to navigate through it all.
The two films highlighted the trials and tribulations of Black Americans. However, they also highlighted the resilience and togetherness of minority communities.
Both films will premiere worldwide on Amazon.