For a good reason, academic institutions make up one of horror’s most frequented settings. We spend a large chunk of our formative years in them, and it’s through their hallowed halls where we often develop our social skills, discover our identity, and shape our morality, particularly in adolescence. All of it provides fertile ground to explore in the genre.
Higher education comes with more pressure and responsibilities, and college is often where the final remnants of adolescence and innocence get shed. In horror, it makes for harsher stakes and intense scares.
Master explores the horrors of academia from the perspective of both faculty and alum.
The Amazon Studios film “follows three black women who strive to find their place at the celebrated Ancaster College, an elite university in New England. The school was built on the site of a Salem-era gallows hill, and the ghostly legacies of Puritan-era persecution haunt the campus in an increasingly supernatural fashion.”
“The plot examines how each of these women will — or won’t — survive in this space of privilege.”
Regina Hall (Girls Trip, Shaft) stars in the film alongside Zoe Renee (“Black Lightning,” Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase) and Amber Gray (“Escape at Dannemora”).
Master releases on Prime Video on March 18, 2022. In anticipation, we look back at the most significant school scares.
Scream 2 – Randy’s death
The infamous death of a fan-favorite character initially induces shock more than fear, mainly because it takes place in broad daylight. Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy) attempts to distract Ghostface on the phone just long enough for his friends to discover the killer’s identity. Instead, he’s pulled into a van and murdered, smack in the middle of a busy, bustling campus. A murder taking place in the middle of it all with no one the wiser is terrifying. That’s precisely why it belongs on this list.
Prince of Darkness – Mirror Mirror
A priest (Donald Pleasence) discovers a large canister of swirling green liquid beneath his church, and he enlists quantum physicist Professor Howard Birack (Victor Wong) to investigate. Birack brings his students to assist, and together they learn the liquid is sentient. It possesses one of the students, who then spread the contamination in a bid to pull Anti-God into our world. It builds to the film’s most terrifying moment, where she begins to pull the otherworldly entity into our dimension through a mirror.
Kristy – Library Evasion
Alone on an empty campus after her sole ally was murdered, Justine (Haley Bennett) looks for places to hide from her attackers. She hides in the library, using shelves to evade as she dials 911. It’s a suspenseful cat, and mouse chase that wrings even more tension by dangling then dashing Justine’s hopes when she realizes the dispatcher on the other line is an attacker that now knows her location.
The Exorcism of Emily Rose – Dorm Room
One of the most terrifying moments of this courtroom horror movie sees a witness relaying a late-night phone call with Emily Rose (Jennifer Carpenter). The terrified freshman woke up to a burning smell in her dorm room. She goes out into the hall to look for fire, closes the swinging door at the end of the hall, then quickly rushes back to her room. An unseen entity attacks as she pulls the covers up over her in bed and closes her eyes. The intensity of the score and Carpenter’s contortions as she gasps for air are chilling.
Raw – Sister Bonding
Justine (Garance Marillier) finds herself struggling to fit in as a freshman in veterinary school, and it’s compounded when a hazing ritual awakens a new appetite in the vegetarian. Justine’s exploration of sexuality gets carnivorous, and it reaches a fever pitch during a rare bonding moment with older sister Alexia (Ella Rumpf). Alexia attempts to give her sister a bikini wax but severs part of her finger in the process. It’s how Justine ravenously responds that disturbs, heralding in a ferocious point of no return.
Thelma – Repressed Memories
Thelma’s (Eili Harboe) deeply sheltered upbringing by devout parents made for a rocky transition into college life. The culture shock became so jarring that Thelma found herself contending with seizures and telekinetic powers. While it’s college and navigating its social hierarchy awakens repressed memories and emotions, the scariest moment comes with the heartbreaking reveal of why Thelma’s parents treat her with fear. As a child, she wished for her crying infant brother to be quiet, not realizing that she was gifted with the supernatural power of manifestation. The baby disappeared from his bath and was later discovered frozen beneath the ice. The imagery devastates and unsettles.
Suspiria – Twisted Dance
The specialized dance academy serves as a front for a witch coven that draws energy from the students, uses dance for spellcasting, and occasionally worse. In the film’s most disturbing scene, Susie Bannion (Dakota Johnson) performs a routine during class while another gets trapped in a room of mirrors. The sharper Susie’s moments, the more the other student’s body contorts into unnatural ways as the coven leaders channel Susie’s dance into vengeful magic. It leaves their target in a broken, crab-like state, in pain yet alive.
Thesis – Matches in the Dark
Alejandro Amenábar’s thriller works as an unsettling thesis on voyeurism and violence and creates paranoia for its lead protagonist by making it unclear who she can trust. While doing her thesis on violence, Ángela (Ana Torrent) finds a snuff video of a girl tortured to death. Then she realizes that the video was shot on campus. In the climax, the tension explodes into fear when Ángela’s boyfriend descends into the basement to investigate why the power goes out. It’s an eerie callback to an earlier tunnel scene that saw the heroine fumbling in the dark with matches. The scare comes when he strikes a match in the dark, but the truth proves even scarier.
Black Christmas – Peeping Eye
At the beginning of this slasher classic, an unseen man climbs into a sorority house and uses it as his preying ground, silently stalking and murdering the sorority sisters. Thanks to the holidays, the crowded house’s numbers dwindle, though none are wiser. It culminates in a harrowing chase between the man and the final girl Jess (Olivia Hussey), who makes his presence known by peeping at her from behind the door. If this startling moment doesn’t make your skin crawl, it’s on too tight.
Master– Under the Bed
Upper-level students waste no time telling first-year student Jasmine (Zoe Renee) the urban legend tethered to her assigned dorm room. Campus lore says that an infamous witch returns to the place to claim a victim every year, and the story seeps into Jasmine’s nightmares. Or are they? A clawed hand reaching up from beneath her bed suggests otherwise and sends shivers down our spines.
Master releases on Prime Video on March 18, 2022.
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