Ganja & Hess (1973) User Reviews

Not As Anemic As I Originally Thought

[ferbs54 · 6/10 · 19 October 2009]

To be perfectly honest, the first time I watched Bill Gunn's 1973 art-house horror movie, "Ganja and Hess," it left me quite cold and even managed to put me to sleep. I felt that the film was unbearably slow moving, featured unsympathetic characters, suffered from lackadaisical direction and mumbled line readings, contained numerous scenes that petered out listlessly and meaninglessly, and concluded with an excruciatingly protracted gospel finale. During a repeat viewing, however, to ascertain whether this film, which I'd loooong wanted to see, was really that bad--and with not so much lowered as altered expectations--I realized that the picture, despite its previously mentioned faults, does contain many fine qualities. In it, we meet Dr. Hess Green, an anthropologist who is stabbed by his unbalanced assistant with a knife from the fabled land of Myrthia and becomes a blood addict (the "v" word is never mentioned in this film), just as likely to sip his beverage of choice from a cut-glass decanter as to lap it up from a dirty floor. He takes up with the wife of his attacker, a beautiful though obnoxious woman named Ganja Meda, in a very unusual romance indeed. Duane Jones, the hero of 1968's seminal "Night of the Living Dead," is excellent and charismatic here as the bearded Dr. Green, and Marlene Clark does well in her difficult role. The film makes great use of an African chant that weaves through Hess' consciousness when he is, uh, thirsty, and its lethargic pace struck me, on a second viewing, as not so much glacial as dreamlike. This is a picture that almost demands and requires a second look to appreciate all its subtleties and various symbolic allusions. Put aside your expectations of fangs and capes and bats and you may find yourself really getting immersed in Hess Green's nightmare. This picture turns out to be not nearly as anemic as I initially thought!

Ganja & Hess

[Bunuel1976 · 7/10 · 3 April 2005]

I first heard of GANJA & HESS (1973) on the Internet but, after reading several favorable reviews, I decided to purchase it and I'm glad I did – though I've only watched it once so far. While I absolutely adore the "old" horror films, it's refreshing that once in a while a film comes along that treats the genre with extra sensitivity and maturity: Bill Gunn's approach, while peripheral in intent, is highly original and invigorating. The music score adds that much more to it, while the photography and editing techniques envelop the whole in a truly stunning visual style. It is inconceivable that such a seminal (and relatively recent) piece of work was almost lost to the ravages of time, not to mention the ignorance and pretensions of commercially-minded distributors!

The DVD's Audio Commentary, though limited (due to the obvious absence of Gunn and Duane Jones), was quite informative and the cast and crew members involved were certainly enthusiastic, harboring a genuine affection for the film. The essay co-written by Tim Lucas was also very interesting, filling as it does the "gaps" concerning the film's background and its chequered history along the years.

I would have liked that the notorious shorter version of the film, BLOOD COUPLE – complete with alternate credits and extra footage, shot by Gunn but discarded when assembling the original director's cut – could have been included on the DVD but, when I put this question to David Kalat (All Day's President), this is what he had to say:

"On GANJA & HESS, all of the parties involved in the original version hated and despised the BLOOD COUPLE recut and everything it represented to them. They worked hard, for little pay, to make a Black art film, and found their work abused and maltreated. 25 years later, through the DVD, they found an opportunity to try again. None of them--the producer, the editor, the DP--would have agreed to include the BLOOD COUPLE cut on the DVD, and I respected their wishes. I used Tim's article as a way to describe that alternate version, even if it wasn't otherwise represented."

Better than the average blaxploitation flick

[jackrabbit1969 · 7/10 · 3 January 2006]

Ganja and Hess doesn't surpass any cinematic niveaux or reinvent the art form but it is far above the standard fare afro Americans have had to tolerate as representative cinema. Something about it is just charming enough to recommend it; it is quirky and pensive but paces itself so deliberately it might well be delivered in episodes. It is a historical artifact, you will notice a multitude of 70s markers. The vampirism is not campy, the dialogue while perhaps inexpertly delivered, is not cliché or stereotyped and the cast looks good. It takes patience, nonetheless to watch and more than a little intelligence to decipher its subtexts.

This is an odd vampire movie to say the least.

[Rastacat1 · 17 November 2002]

This is an odd movie to say the least. Dr. Hess Green (Duane Jones) acquires the "addiction" from a ceremony while travelling in Africa and becomes, basically, a vampire. Not your standard fictional vampire mind you, but someone who has a hunger for blood and cannot die. After that, all similarities with your standard vampire end. He walks in the daylight, sleeps in a bed, goes to church and does not have fangs. He lives on a large estate and has a butler and chauffeur who take care of him. There is a bit of narration from the butler who knows about the doctor's affliction, but it is mostly to get us up to speed at the beginning of the film. A ways into the film Ganja (Marlene Clark) comes to stay with Dr. Hess. She finds evidence of strange goings on and tells Hess an interesting story from her childhood. Somehow this leads to their getting married and him performing the ceremony on her to give her the same affliction he has.

There are parts of the film that have a lot of dialog and then other parts that have very little, if any. There are also some extended scenes from a gospel singing church that look more like a documentary than a fictional vampire movie. Flashback scenes are interspersed with dream sequences and at times it is difficult to tell if it is present reality or a dream. There are a few violent scenes where the doctor feeds including one at a whorehouse where he somewhat violently kills his victim and laps up the blood that has spilled. In another scene he robs a medical clinic, walking away with their supply of blood in his leather satchel.

I can't say that this is a great movie, but it is somewhat entertaining, if not a little slow. When the film was first screened the producers were disappointed that it was not a traditional "blaxpoitation" film and cut it down from 110 minutes to 78 minutes. It bombed and was soon forgotten.

All Day Entertainment released the fully restored dvd to much fanfare from fans of the movie back in 1998 and it is still in release. There is an essay from Tim Lucas and and a commentary from producer Chiz Schultz, actress Marlene Clark, cinematographer James Hinton and soundtrack composer Sam Waymon. The full retail price is $30 and I am certainly glad I rented it from Netflix instead of buying it, but some collectors might consider it for their collection, mostly those intereseted in really offbeat, independent vampire films, or collectors of interesting black cinema (blaxploitation it is not).

A cerebral allegory on black identity in a horror film?

[melvelvit-1 · 7/10 · 1 December 2016]

Even though it got a standing ovation at Cannes, the independent producers were appalled when they hired playwright/director Bill Gunn to make a blaxsploitation horror film a la BLACULA and he turned in a cerebral allegory on black identity. They cut about 40 minutes and released it in the U.S. as BLOOD COUPLE where it sank without a trace. Gunn's original vision remained "lost" until recently but because the negative was cut, the MoA had to reconstruct the film from various 35mm prints and it's now being appreciated as an artistically innovative contribution to black cinema's history.

The story, such as it is, is slight: wealthy anthropologist Hess Green's unstable assistant stabs him with an ancient African sacrificial knife and he becomes a "vampire", although not in the traditional sense; there's no fangs and the good doctor can go out in the daylight and even attend church. He satisfies his craving for blood by killing pimps, hookers, and stealing plasma bags but complications arise when Ganja, his late assistant's avaricious wife, arrives at Hess' mansion looking for her husband. She and Hess bond despite her finding her husband's body in the freezer and Ganja & Hess soon marry. Hess "turns" her and, finally finding redemption in love, wants them to stand in the shadow of the Cross (the only thing that can kill "vampires") but because of the life she's had, Ganja actually prefers her new one and has no intention of giving it up.

Culture clash, assimilation, colonialism, "Uncle Tom", pagan African religion vs the Baptist church, and "the new black woman" all come into play in what's basically the antithesis of "blaxsploitation" but because I've never lived the "black experience", I didn't connect with all of it (if anything, I saw feminism with Ganja reversing what happens to Lot's wife in Sodom). That said, one would have to be blind not to see there's a lot bubbling just beneath the surface and like Masaki Kobayashi's KAIDAN, I was carried along by the film's visual style even if the tale was rather slow-moving and not as horrific as I'd like. Still, the film stayed in my mind for a couple of days after watching it. Spike Lee remade it as DA SWEET BLOOD OF Jesus.

Nothing can survive the shadows.

[lastliberal · 8/10 · 15 July 2010]

There are others that can talk about the symbolism in this film much better than I can. It was made for Black audiences, and I certainly won't try to describe what director Bill Gunn was trying to say.

This film effectively ended Bill Gunn's short career. He was supposed to make a Blaxploitation film like Blacula. He failed his producers by making an art film, which they chopped up and released under another name. This is the fully restored film with an amazingly beautiful score by Sam Waymon.

If you are looking for horror or blaxploitation, you came to the wrong place. This film was shown at Cannes - the only American entry that year - and received a standing ovation.

Oddest "Black" film of all time.

[bates-mt · 7/10 · 12 December 2011]

In the history of Black cinema, Bill Gun's movie is certainly a bizarre oddity. It doesn't fit at all with the Blaxploitation films of the same period, nor is it in any conventional sense a horror film. It does address many recognizable aspects of Black culture (or, it might be more accurate to say, the "pop" culture version of it): the Baptist church, the gaudily-dressed pimp, the blonde-wigged whore, the gun play, the jive talk, the mystical back-to-Africa mythological hokum. However, its visual style owes more to Bergman (Hour of the Wolf) and Argento than to Van Peebles and others. This is a film about the corruptions and decadence of the Black bourgeoisie; before most folks even knew there was one. But this isn't the Cosby Show. Doomed from the outset--not because it doesn't have a striking visual style, it does--but because it failed to offer audiences, Black and White, the view of Black culture they crave, even today; the Black culture even Spike Lee invariably provides on cue. For this reason, a groundbreaking movie, and one worth another look and further re-evaluation. It has more than a hint of the Dorian Gray, of the knowingly camp, about it. Gunn makes it hard to tell how seriously to take the religious imagery and symbolism. If, however, a White director had made the scenes in the Black church--the behavior of the congregation as outlandishly over-the-top and "insane" as anything in the Dr. Hess household--he or she would surely have been accused of being racist. Gunn himself plays against Blaxploitation type: a somewhat effete intellectual, almost certainly homosexual, whose violence is ultimately entirely self-directed. The image of Black masculinity as vulnerably exposed, and painfully so, is perhaps more honestly revealed here than in any other "Black" film. Compared with this, even Lee only pussyfoots around the issue.

Paltry and near-worthless horror effort

[kannibalcorpsegrinder · 2/10 · 14 June 2014]

After being stabbed with a ceremonial dagger but finding himself unable to die, a man tries to control his insatiable blood-lust while keeping himself safe from his new wife who grows curious about his strange activities.

This is a truly abysmal effort that has very little elements that are enjoyable and wasn't all that entertaining at all. The main thing with this is that nothing happens at all in here and it's an endless repeat of boring blather about nothing in particular or endless looping of an admittedly-catchy tribal song and not much else, as the film's barely-there plot unfolds in such a confusing, mystifying manner that there's almost no way to ensure what's going on at all. That just makes the film seem endlessly long and excruciatingly boring, since we don't have anything to really get a grasp on at all beyond the few decent moments of eroticism and sensuality present in their romance with each other. That mostly comes along during the final half which is where the few moments of enjoyment come from with the final revelation of the curse forcing this into some decent areas, but overall, this one just isn't all that worthwhile.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Language, Nudity, strong sexual content and drug use.

An Ignored American Masterpiece

[loganx-2 · 10/10 · 18 October 2009]

Bill Gunn was paid to make Blacksploitation movie, basically a knock off Blacula and instead made an insanely ambitious, lyrical, high art film called "Ganja And Hess", which happened to have an all black cast and involve vampires, though the v-word is never mentioned.

One of the defining criterion of Blacksploitation cinema; a black cast working with white writers, directors and producers is absent in G&H. Bill Gunn wrote, directed, and stared in the film, where there are no white characters present anywhere at all (accept briefly in Hess' dreams/visions), eliminating the usual reference to "the man" as villain and planting the discussion singularly in the black community.

There is nothing exploitative about any of this, it just happens to be a movie with a low-budget. In fact I think it's the best and most complex film about African American Christianity I've ever seen. Ganja and Hess is not that simple, to say it's spiritual on one hand or a critique on the other, is a matter of whether you prefer Ganja or Hess.

Hess (Duane Johnson of Romero's original Night of the Living Dead) is a wealthy anthropologist studying the ancient Mythria tribe in Africa who takes on a new assistant named George (played by Gunn), who begins to appear more and more manic.

Hess stops George's first suicide attempt, but George later inexplicably attacks him stabbing him with an ancient knife Hess keeps as a kind of tribal art on his bed stand. George then bathes ritualistically and commits suicide on his knees, naked with a gun shot to the chest.

Hess quickly adjusts to his new thirst which is cued by an echoing African chanting and images of tribal ceremonies in a field.

Hess drinks blood from a glass, an image later echoed in Abel Ferrara's "The Addiction", a similarly complex religious vampire film (and to think, Anne Rice said she couldn't write both at the same time).

Ganja is George's wife fresh from Amsterdam, who knows his "crazy" tendencies, and asks to stay at Hess' home to wait for his return. Ganja is confident and direct where Hess is cool and coy. Ganja berates and insults Hess' butler Archie, only after implying Hess treats him coldly and impersonally. She gages his reaction and when she see's he isn't concerned proceeds to dominate Archie, and subsequently positioning herself as mistress of the house.

The couple marry, and Hess seems genuinely in love, while Ganja is genuinely in love with her new position, and not in the least bothered by her belief that Hess killed George for some reason which to her doesn't need explaining. He loves her so much they have their second wedding as he sire's her with the Myrthrian dagger used on him.

This scene is as ritualistic as the Church wedding that came before, only now Hess pronounces they will be free of guilt, fear, and sin before knifing her. The sex scenes recalls Alain Resnais' Hiroshima Mon Amour, consisting of ambiguous body close ups and glistening sweat, only at the end of Gunn's scene, when the lights come on, the sweat is revealed to be blood.

Hess attends Wayman's church, perhaps put off by Ganja's sleeping with another man, or insisting that he was not dead when they took his body to the field, and in any event, experiences a religious awakening of his own in silent movements across his face like Dryer's "Passion of Joan of Arc".

This complicates what had been a simple binary of African ritual/savagery/hedonism to Christian/restraint/morality/love. This binary is further complicated when Hess allows himself to starve to death sitting in the shadow of a cross, and the scene is juxtaposed with a flash black of George killing himself. "The cross is only an instrument of torture; it's the shadow of the cross that creates its meaning. Shadows conquer everything.", says Hess to Ganja during one of their chats.

Neither is above reproach for Gunn though, one may be liberating to fault when over-indulgence becomes neurosis and eternal youth resembles eternal adolescence (George's character) while the other may only be repression of cultural traditions, class relations which amounts to ennui and stagnation.

I don't think Gunn wants us to pick a side, the film is called Ganja and Hess after all, and neither one's self sacrificing nor the others self absorption seems definitive. "I feel like both a murderer and a victim" George says early on. The rest of the movie plays on this contradictory impasse; the horror of the film comes from the philosophical ambiguity resembling a visually driven "No Exit".

Gunn is speaking directly to a black audience, his intended and studio mandated demographic, and though his themes are philosophically universal, they speak specifically to a newly radicalized post-Civil Rights black audience budding between calls for socially conscious realist Nationalism and Black Christian moralism; Hess and Ganja respectively.

The images of the field become a place of burial (corpses) and of things past returning (the procession of the ancient tribe). The music by Wayman predicts Animal Collective's droned out psychedelic African tribal chants by thirty years. The rest of the score is upbeat 70's pop, soul, and gospel, all styles that cascade together in the church scene, when the non-digetic music, is reveled as the church band, and a principle structuring element for much of the editing.

Ganja and Hess is at minimum a marginalized if not completely forgotten masterpiece of American cinema. It got a standing ovation at Cannes (where it was the only American film entered that year), and ensured no American producer would work with Bill Gunn on a theatrical film ever again. Bill Gunn's corpse is still locked in the cultural cellar, discovered from time to time, but easily (and tragically) ignored in favor of more profitable ventures.

A unique, provocative film.

[Hey_Sweden · 7/10 · 2 September 2018]

Duane Jones of "Night of the Living Dead" fame plays Dr. Hess Green, a renowned professor of anthropology and geology who is assaulted by his unstable new assistant, George Meda (played by writer / director Bill Gunn). George stabs Hess with a ceremonial dagger that turns Hess into a fiend with a craving for blood. Then Georges' outspoken hottie wife Ganja (sexy Marlene Clark) arrives, looking for her husband and also looking for a place to stay. Ultimately, Hess and Ganja enter into a passionate relationship, fired by their desire for the red stuff.

It's a shame that this ended the filmmaking career of Mr. Gunn. His producers wanted him to deliver a "Blacula" type of exploitation-horror picture, but he took the money and made something far more interesting and substantial. This viewer found this to be an intriguing film that owes more to art films than conventional horror - full of meaning, symbolism, and imagery. Therefore, it won't be to some tastes: people may find it far too long and not exploitative or gory enough. But it is also extremely sexy, atmospheric, effectively acted, and nicely scored by Sam L. Waymon, who plays the supporting role of the Reverend Luther Williams.

Far from being a typical vampire flick, this features characters who may not be *that* sympathetic, but who are trying to come to terms with the changes in their lives. In fact, we never do hear the V word, and "Ganja & Hess" never does go for the "body count" approach. Nor is there anything resembling a Van Helsing kind of character.

Jones delivers a quiet, restrained performance. Perhaps a bit aloof, but this does fit his role. Clark is quite enticing to watch, and is given one big monologue well into the picture. Gunn himself is pretty memorable in his brief time on screen. This was the feature film debut for singer / actress Mabel King, of 'What's Happening!!' fame.

Re-released by various distributors, at various running times, over the next few years, but if people are looking for substance and not mere exploitation, they're advised to check out this full-length 114 minute-long version.

Seven out of 10.

Experimental Vampire Film Bogged Down in Symbolism

[TheRedDeath30 · 3/10 · 15 September 2014]

I am a horror aficionado who is always open to seeking out a lost treasure or new discovery on my horror quest. I had heard this movie pop up a few times over the years in discussion and felt it was time to give it a shot. Truth be told, it took everything in me just to make it through to the end of this one.

Let's start with the obvious statement that needs to be made, this is not really a horror movie, or a vampire movie. If you are going into this with the expectation of finding a drive-in or grindhouse flick from the 70s, this is not going to meet your expectations, at all.

This movie is very much in the art-house realm, using the archetypes of vampire mythology to explore concepts of addiction, religion and cultural identity. That would be fine with me. I was a Lit student in college and enjoy an intelligent movie with themes to explore. The problem here is that's all this movie has to offer. It's essentially two hours of conversation between Ganja and Hess, intercut with softcore sex, an occasional post-kill death scene and an overwhelming amount of directorial masturbation meant to convey symbolism.

I'm completely open to abstract film and the use of images to convey your symbolism, but you can achieve the same effect and still present an entertaining narrative. Even to have kept the same artistic flourishes, but to have actually explored the vampirism a little more in between might have produced a better film. Instead, the relief we get from the barrage of images is nothing more than conversation between two main characters.

This, in itself, is a problem because of the odd dialog style employed here. The acting and dialog delivery often feels like a bad 60s documentary. It's like watching WOODSTOCK and listening to the drug-addled metaphysical ramblings of hippies, "you dig me man". The opening convo with Bill Gunn as the maniac assistant, or the scene of Ganja explaining her childhood. Nothing felt professional or even more, if often felt like they would trip over words on purpose, or struggle for the next thought. I eventually started feeling like everyone on the cast and crew was high and I was watching a film that probably amused them greatly but did nothing for me.

I'm sure I'll get Not Helpfuls from the folks who assume that I'm just not intelligent or artistic enough to appreciate this "classic masterpiece", but this could have been done well, done intelligently and still created a much more entertaining film in the meantime. This is just dull and boring and make most wish for the two hours of their life back.

Music, Sex, Blood, Wealth, Youth

[bregund · 10/10 · 12 December 2011]

I stumbled across this film on TCM the other night and was immediately struck by the hypnotic chanting, which punctuates the dramatic scenes, offset by lyrical stretches of blues music, classical music, and gospel music. If the music doesn't pull you into the film, certainly the lingering shots of high art, forested hills, a sprawling mansion replete with objets d'art, naked bodies, smoky bars, colorful clothes, fancy cars, and odd camera angles, fades, and closeups certainly add texture to what could easily have been an exploitative b-movie. This is a visually gorgeous art-house film that yields great rewards for the patient viewer.

There is something frightening about watching the Queen of Myrthia strolling through a grassy meadow in an outrageous feathered headdress, accompanied by her consorts and that weird chanting music, which becomes distorted and stretched during times when Hess succumbs to the disease with which he is cursed. Gunn introduces this startling visual at just the right time, leaving the viewer to draw his own conclusions. This is one of the rarest of films: a thinking man's horror film that takes the time to carefully add depth to the characters. For example, we first encounter Ganja during a phone call to Hess: she's at the airport, having just arrived from Amsterdam. We only see her mouth, as she demands to see her husband.

Later on, while breakfasting with Hess, Ganja is petty and demanding, having no idea that Hess is a monster who lapped up her dead husband's blood from the bathroom floor. She mercilessly attacks Archie, the butler. Gradually she is drawn into Hess's bleak, moneyed existence, and eventually they marry, in an amazing scene with multiple camera angles. In their wedding bed, Hess proclaims that he "wants her to live forever" and there is an extraordinary sequence in which she realizes that something profound is happening to her existence. She screams in horror into the night, no longer the naive, shrieking shrew that she was when she arrived at the house. The newlyweds, dressed in red, entice a young victim to their dining room and she kills him later on in her bedroom. They drag his body into a sun-filled meadow.

I can't remember the last time that I saw any recently-made film that took the time to carefully build the characters and allowed the viewer to appreciate what is happening with them. Bill Gunn certainly crafted an American socio-political gem with this brilliant film, with its veiled commentary about ultimately resisting a system imbued with expectations about who and what you should be. In the end, disgusted with the things he is forced to do, Hess chooses freedom and returns to the only family he knows, dying in the process. The last shot we see is a mourning Ganja, who has chosen life, trapped behind the walls of her sprawling new prison-home.

This is an extraordinary film.

An Interesting Blaxploitation Horror Movie

[Uriah43 · 6/10 · 25 April 2022]

This film essentially begins with a wealthy anthropologist by the name of "Dr. Hess Green" (Duane Jones) inviting his new assistant "George Meda" (Bill Gunn) to his house for dinner. During this time George, who is by his own admission "neurotic", gets exceedingly drunk and tries to kill Hess by stabbing him 3 times with an ancient African knife that has special, hidden properties. Afterwards, feeling guilty for what he had done, George subsequently kills himself. It's then that we discover that Hess was not killed and that whatever wounds he had sustained have completely healed on their own. At the same time, however, he finds that he has an unquenchable thirst for blood and because of that he then proceeds to drink his fill from the body of his dead assistant. From that point on, his life revolves around killing others so that he might live. Now, rather than reveal any more, I will just say that this was a highly unusual horror film in that it deviates from the usual vampire traditions in favor of a supposed African mythology centered on a ancient tribe known as "the Myrthians." It also uses certain special effects which simulate a drug-enhanced stupor to great effect as well. Even more important, in my opinion, is the fact that there are apparently several versions of this film all with different titles and running times. And while I cannot comment on any of the others, I can say that the long version of "Ganja & Hess" was quite interesting and I have rated it accordingly. Slightly above average.

Excruciatingly awful.

[Volrath327 · 2/10 · 5 April 2004]

(spoilers ahead) Because Ganja and Hess had shots that are out of focus, male nudity and just about no narrative sense, many are quick to call it a masterpiece. I'm afraid I don't fall into that camp.

Sure, Ganja and Hess is "different," but that doesn't make it good. The best kinds of "different" films are the ones that challenge the norms and conventions of moviemaking while engaging the viewer emotionally in some way. It could be funny, sad,exciting, scary, enlightening, or just plain entertaining. The point is, it should affect the viewer somehow.

Watching Ganja and Hess is sitting for almost two hours waiting for it to end. There's barely a story to follow and the characters are just there. Even Duane Jones, so magnetic in Night of the Living Dead, can't do anything for his role. It doesn't help that the movie is so poorly filmed you can barely ever get a good look at anyone.

The movie makes a crucial blunder from the first sequence. Silly little subtitles tell us that Dr.Hess Greene was stabbed and now has a craving for blood. Did it ever occur to anyone that we might like to see this scene? The scenes of violence that are present in the film have almost zero effect because there's not really a context for any of it. As the movie goes on, the vampirism is downplayed in favor of...something, I'm not sure what exactly. All I know is that the movie frequently and jarringly shifts perspective and different narrators come in and start talking without actually saying anything. Ganja and Hess is a shoddy, ill-conceived and painfully tedious experience.

2/10

So why a 2 instead of a 1? Well, there were brief moments where I liked the soundtrack.

Misunderstood

[ramaeker · 17 March 2003]

Many comments on this film from other users implicitly take on a perspective not unlike that of the producers who severly cut the film before its theatrical release because they expected it to be a more conventional blaxploitation horror film. It is neither blaxploitation nor horror, but instead one of the few (only?) examples of an independent African-American art cinema from the early '70s. It may be flawed, but it is also an incredibly ambitious, challenging film. If you are a fan of Shaft, Superfly, et. al., you may not like this one; if you are a fan of Bergman, Bunuel, or Antonioni, you should check it out.

"Philosophical Fever Dream"

[blakestachel · 7/10 · 20 October 2021]

A uniquely formalist film about the Black experience, a film about being both a victim and a murderer, and about simultaneously being oppressed, while also being an oppressor. Ultimately, it is a film about Black assimilation into Anglo-Saxonism, and the complications that arise from a fractured identity. These ideas, while being incredibly ripe for thought, ultimately come across as a bit jumbled. The whole film feels rather jumbled, actually, like some discordant fever dream, which excites in a sensory way, but which does not quite make an effective appeal to logos.

One of the greatest films of the 1970's.

[Rigor · 10/10 · 4 November 1998]

Ganja and Hess is a landmark film in so many ways. It is a remarkable achievement technically and in terms of fractured narrative. It is a remarkable addition to the African-American cannon of film. It is a remarkable boundary crossing experiment, aggressively combining elements of the blacksploitation horror film with the "art" film. Ganja and Hess is a vampire movie that says more about African-American history, sexual politics, capitalism and its relation to sexuality, colonialism and identity and spirituality than most other films. Find this film!

Two kinds of movies

[jan-hranac · 6/10 · 11 June 2023]

I'll start with the usual preamble: America makes two kinds of movies: Empty CGI spectacles and self-absorbed (wish-to-be-European) dramas which, in the end, are equally empty. This movie is the latter.

Don't get me wrong, I've got no actual negatives here. Screenplay, acting, camera, production - all of it is ok. It's just that there's no point to it all. Where's a plot? What's the point of it all? Is the movie entertaining in any shape or form? Does it have a heart? No. Maybe there's some "inner joke" to it all to some people, but not to me. All I saw was 2 hours of boredom. This is not how you emulate European cinematography!

However, it's still better than Disney Star Wars or MCU, that much is sure.

The Anti-Blaxploitation

[cheekyfilm · 2/10 · 31 March 2020]

Ganja & Hess is an art house movie disguised as blaxploitation. But it's a bad art house movie, more like a bad student film.

There is some beautiful photography throughout, but that's the only compliment that immediately comes to mind. The acting is uniformly wooden, the story is slow and goes nowhere, and the soundtrack is unbearably obnoxious. Those are three elements that I'm usually looking forward to in a movie like this. Other takes on the genre have awesome music, entertaining preformances, and an a interesting hook to the plot (however cheesy it might have been). The hook here was supposed to be another take on 'Blackula', but instead we get a vague allegory layered over a bizzare vampire story involving a cursed knife.

Looking at the movie objectively, away from it's supposed genre, it's still a mess. It's worst sin is how boring it becomes, and how quickly. The filmmakers seemed to be going for a surrealist vibe within the constraints of the characters and production, but it all falls flat. A surrealist blaxsploitation film could be very interesting, but they never go far enough in either direction. Like forgetting the key ingredients while making a great recipe.

The occasional moments of impressive cinematography kept me watching, in spite of it being crushingly boring. I literally nodded off on multiple occasions while watching (it was late, give the movie a break).

Even being low budget, and (arguably) ahead of it's time conceptually, and even though there were parts of the production that were very impressive and watchable, this ended up as one of the least enjoyable movie experiences in recent memory.

Points for originality and some beautiful proto Wes Anderson style shots. The cinematography was truly excellent, it bears repeating

foundation film, takes an effort but amazing film

[mario-217-690269 · 8/10 · 20 January 2015]

There was a time when film was slower. Shots were longer and cuts were considered an interruption. Ganja and Hess is of this era. Before you say anything, realize that image means a lot in cinema. Just the amazing imagery and in-depth account of black life without the white gaze make this an important film. The rich world of Dr. Hess unfolds with African connections, the church, and the street all make for a pioneering film with complete disdain for established norms. As a student of black cinema this along with Bush Mama and Killer of Sheep are simply must sees. For the second wave see Daughters of the dust, Dead presidents and Sankofa. While it is no night of the living dead it is an import stop in the history of the horror genre.

One of the most over-rated films of the 1970's

[obelisk · 1/10 · 5 August 1999]

I took a chance on this film after reading a couple of intriguing reviews of it. Ultimately, I thought the film was boring, incomprehensible, amateurish, and almost unwatchable. The cinematography and editing are a mess. The story pointless and the direction varies between arty and overdone to dull and sluggish. The acting ranged from passable (by the lead, Duane Jones) to awful (everyone else). This is supposed to be a landmark in black cinema of the 70's? Avoid at all costs!!!

DUANE JONES

[richard-III · 8/10 · 21 January 2004]

GANJA AND HESS is indeed an offbeat film. It is interesting, because of it not wanting to be just a blaxploitation film of the seventies, but it has a looseness which often makes it wander around too much.

Otherwise it points its finger to African culture, which is a great theme that could be investigated more often.

Duane Jones is fascinating as ever, even he's made only so-and-so-much films. I originally came to see GANJA AND HESS because of Duane Jones' great performance in NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD.

All style and class, but where's the horror?

[Coventry · 4/10 · 5 February 2007]

To simply tag "Ganja & Hess" with a label of blaxploitation would be a serious understatement, as this is probably THE most ambitious 'black' film of entire 70's decade. The substance of the film covers horror, but you really wouldn't say so, as there's no explicit violence or bloodshed on screen, and the whole production relies on its dark and moody atmosphere. It's a really weird and ultra-slow film, definitely not suitable viewing in case you are looking for barbaric 70's horror. I can't say I liked it very much because, honestly, it's a super-pretentious film that goes on for far too long without actually handling about anything. I appreciate smart dialogs and subtle atmosphere as much as the next guy, but a synopsis claiming to revolve on blood addiction and passionate murder eventually must show something, right? Duane Jones ("Night of the Living Dead") gives a marvelously languid performance as a doctor who suffers from an insatiable desire for human blood, brought onto him after being stabbed with an ancient cursed dagger. Shortly after, when his assistant (played by Bill Gunn, the director) commits suicide, Dr. Hess comes into contact with his widow Ganja and sweeps her along in his strange and depressing 'vampire' universe. The acting performances and filming locations form a potent mix, but the pace of the film is truly soporific. Bill Gunn artsy attempts to disguise the lack of budget with various ingenious camera angles and sound effects, but he still can't hide the fact there's no suspense or involvement in the screenplay. Perhaps the heavily cut version "Blood Couple" is more endurable. I can only imagine some of the dialog is cut in that version, as there's no gore or sleaze to censor. It's an interesting film considering its historical background, but it doesn't hold any entertainment value.

This is a review of the "Blood Couple" version of the film.

[InjunNose · 8/10 · 19 December 2006]

I've never seen the full, unexpurgated version of "Ganja and Hess" as director Bill Gunn intended it to be viewed. However, since a handful of other reviewers have mentioned the little-seen edited version, I thought I'd offer my thoughts on it. I remember when Duane Jones's obituary appeared in "Fangoria" magazine in January 1989. I was a huge "Night of the Living Dead" fan and his passing came as a shock to me. The people at "Fango" gave him a beautiful, deeply respectful send-off; the article contained an interview with Jones (a rarity in itself) as well as a discussion of his other horror film roles, the most prominent of which was in "Ganja and Hess". I had never heard of this film prior to reading the article (which also mentioned that the movie could be found on video under various alternate titles, including "Blood Couple" and "Black Vampire"), but it sounded intriguing and I kept an eye out for it. Just about a year later, I found a brand new VHS copy of "Blood Couple" at the supermarket, of all places. Before I comment on the film itself, let me say that I fully understand why Bill Gunn, Duane Jones, and company did not care for "Blood Couple". Reading about the uncut "Ganja and Hess", it's obvious that "Couple" was a savage edit of Gunn's labor of love, and at times it doesn't make sense even on its own terms as an 83-minute exploitation flick. But by the same token, it contains quite a bit of footage that went unused in "Ganja and Hess", and there are plenty of frightening, gut-wrenching moments. In those dim, distant years before rare films found new life on DVD, it was nice to see Gunn's movie in any form. In "Blood Couple", the murder of Dr. Hess Green (Jones) by his assistant George Meda (Gunn) takes place during the first ten or fifteen minutes of the film. This is followed by the harrowing scene of Green's resurrection, Meda's suicide, and Green's terrible realization that he is now addicted to human blood. The next scene, which is almost as disturbing, shows a desperate, tearful Hess Green reciting a prayer and then attempting to kill himself, too--but he cannot. He was rendered immortal when Meda stabbed him with the ancient Myrthian "dagger" (actually a piece of wood, sharpened at the end and containing bits of human bone). He will not die unless the shadow of a cross touches his heart, which is mentioned--but not clearly explained--in a brief song on the film's soundtrack. This is where things start to get a little fuzzy. Apparently, a curse was visited upon the Myrthians that they should live forever unless they were touched by the shadow of a cross...but, as the song says, "Christ had not come yet and the cross did not exist", so the Myrthians were doomed to hundreds of years of existence as blood addicts. But who cursed them? And how did this unnamed person know that Christ ever *would* come? I guess it's silly to expect too many answers from a sliced-and-diced exploitation movie. Hess Green's son is nowhere to be found in "Blood Couple", and Ganja (Marlene Clark) apparently dies along with her new husband in the film's grim conclusion. Gunn's direction and dialogue are often self-consciously artsy, and when he stumbles, he stumbles rather badly (mostly in the early scenes featuring Green and Meda). In my opinion, however, Gunn scores more hits than misses even in this edited version of his film. From the moment "Blood Couple" begins, there is a pervasive mood of unease and doom; you *know* that terrible things are going to happen. That kind of mood is very difficult to achieve, judging from all the stacks of lousy horror movies out there, and that's why I give this film an 8.

Ain't We Artsy

[batlash · 1/10 · 2 January 2004]

I think this movie made my eyes bleed. This is a perfect example of bad "art" movies. Dull, incoherent, pedestrian direction, mediocre acting, clueless editing, blind cinematography, and almost certainly no writing (this thing surely couldn't have been scripted). Perhaps Bill Gunn should have made the standard blaxploitation vampire movie he was hired to make. It certainly couldn't have been any worse.