Ganja & Hess (1973) ***1/2

With Ganja & Hess (1973), Bill Gunn was approached by independent production company Kelly-Jordan Enterprises to make a "black vampire film", to cash in on the success of 1972's Blacula (review). Gunn accepted the job but instead of delivering another blaxploitation movie, he made a "landmark 1973 indie that used vampirism as an ingenious metaphor for black assimilation, white cultural imperialism and the hypocrisies of organized religion." [Scott Foudas]

Duane Jones only played lead in but two films, the other being George A. Romero's classic Night Of The Living Dead (1968) (review). In fact, Jones only acted in four more films after this one and two of them happened to be about vampires! Incidentally, the presentation and atmosphere of G&H reminded me a lot of Romero's Martin (review), released four years later. They're both experimental, artsy vampire films that eschew many of the well-worn tropes of the genre. They're both obtuse but I found G&H to be even more so.

G&H did well at Cannes but was then unfortunately recut and rescored (and disowned by Gunn) under the title Blood Couple where it initially performed poorly at the box office. Fortunately, the original cut was donated to the MoMA and was released on Blu-ray in the U.S. by Kino Lorber and in the U.K. by Eureka. It's an imperfect, at times frustrating, and slow (sometimes boring) film but a weird, unique, and fascinating one nonetheless. I'm honestly hesitant to see Spike Lee's 2014 crowdfunded remake, Da Sweet Blood Of Jesus (I'm not really sure how you remake a film like this), but I will eventually.

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