DVD: Ganja & Hess

If coming to Ganja & Hess under the impression it’s Seventies’ Blaxploitation along the lines of Blacula, beware. It does feature an immortal character as its lead. And there is the drinking of blood as well as violence. Instead of doing what he was commissioned to do, director Bill Gunn’s 1973 film is an art-house oddity.

When the film was completed, Gunn’s backers cut 35 minutes and gave it the horror-friendly title Blood Couple. After that, it went out as Black Evil, Blackout: The Moment of Terror, Black Vampire and Vampires of Harlem. This release is from an original, uncut print which was lodged with the New York Museum of Modern Art of the full, 113-minute film.

The plot could be standard enough. Anthropologist Hess Green (Duane Jones – only seen otherwise in Night of the Living Dead) lives in palatial splendour and is stabbed by his assistant George Meda (the polymathic Gunn – an actor as well as director, novelist and playwright). The knife has magical properties and renders Hess immortal. Meda kills himself. When his wife Ganja (Marlene Clark) returns from Europe and looks for him, she strikes up a relationship with Hess – despite finding Meda’s body in Hess’ house, and thinking Hess killed him By this time, Hess has a thirst for human blood and sates it however he can. In the end, salvation comes from the church. (pictured right: director Bill Gunn as George Meda)

Yet Ganja & Hess is not standard. Gunn was influenced by Bergman’s allusiveness and the film also resembles the Spanish auteur Jesse Franco’s most opaque art-house horror. It is not linear and has sudden cuts to surreal flashbacks, dream sequences reflecting on African heritage and scenes emblematically seen through columns or with the action far in the background. Abstruse disquisitions touch on the nature of American society, race and social philosophy in general with an African-American emphasis. The atmosphere throughout is distanced (muffled dialogue doesn’t help). Even the violent scenes play out as if in slow motion.

Ganja & Hess is surreal and takes some getting used to, but has a spellbinding allure. Spike Lee, for one, was convinced of its distinctiveness and has remade it as Da Sweet Blood of Jesus. With extras including an ramshackle, often shadowy yet interesting half-hour appreciation of the film and two commentary tracks – which do not include Gunn (who died in 1989) and Jones (who died in 1988) – this is a definitive release of a film apart.

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Overleaf: watch a clip from Ganja & Hess

Watch a clip from Ganja & Hess