Ganja & Hess

This film is beyond incredible in my opinion. One of the most poignant and haunting moments in this film is near the end when Hess (Duane Jones) reads from a book in front of a fireplace and Ganja (Marlene Clarke) asks him what he is reading (after complaining of always being cold--a side-effect of Myrthian vampirism): Ganja: What are you reading? Hess: It's the guide to our destruction...the solution... "Helga, 4th Queen of Myrthia: If you worship any god whatsoever and if you believe this god to be good And if this god in which you trust be destroyed by forces dangerous to the survival of love And if the implement by which this god is destroyed (For this is the symbol of the destruction of life) It...must cast a shadow on the heart that he shall be released unto the bosom of his Creator..having suffered and tasted the blood of the womb of Nature And may sleep in her lap forever... Amen." Ganja: If the shadow of the cross is on our heart, it'll destroy us? Hess: But the cross is only an implement of torture...its shadow is the darkness it casts, you see... ...nothing can survive the shadows.... Powerful stuff!

Instead of making a straight-forward blaxploitation horror movie, as the producers of Ganja & Hess rightfully expected, writer/director Bill Gunn went off and created an experimental arthouse film rife with symbolism and subtext, but severely lacking in wide brimmed hats, pimps, hos and funky waka chicka waka chicka music. The result is a pretentious dud full of meandering scenes, mumbled dialogue and offbeat action, a tortuously trippy pile of tosh that left its backers (and me) distinctly unimpressed. Duane Jones, of Night Of The Living Dead fame, plays Dr. Hess Green, a wealthy archaeologist who is stabbed by an infected dagger that leaves him immortal, but with a thirst for blood. Marlene Clark is Ganja, the obnoxious wife of Dr. Hess' assistant George (played by Gunn). After paying Hess a visit, Ganja discovers that her husband is dead (having committed suicide) and falls for the doctor, only to become infected herself. Put simply, this is one of the most boring films I have ever seen: the artsy fartsy approach, the aimless direction, the pointless discourse (including a baffling monologue about a snowball fight), and the prolonged evangelical church service at the end all making for a dull experience. Read what you want into the symbolism (and many clearly have, given the film's cult status), but it still doesn't make for an enjoyable experience. I, for one, think that the clue is in the title: ganja is required to make the movie bearable. N.B. In order to try and make some cash from this mess, the distributors had the film re-edited and rereleased as Blood Couple. I haven't seen that cut, but I can't imagine it being any better.

This movie was not all that great and one that I wouldn't recommend checking out if your a serious vampire flick fan. I thought that sense it had Duane jones staring as the main character that it would have at least a little potential in it but what i saw most of his acting was boring dialogue and not enough enthusiasm in his character. Jones gets stabbed by a man that later committed suicide and left jones a living vampire. Jones then sucks the blood of the man and keeps him in the freezer in fear that if he is caught that he will be found guilty of the man murder. Soon afterward we see visions of an African queen somehow in control of Jones and leads him to kill more and more people. Wee see Jones envisioning being at a church in order to free himself of this curse of being a vampire and his fate is left after that scene. The woman on the other hand is the wife of the man that committed suicide and ends up staying at jones place and finds her husbands body in the freezer and finds out that after she has fallen in love with Jones that there is more to this man than she cares to know about. Jones wants to make her immortal just as he is. This movie is unmemorable, slow and boring it tends to want to sway to fans of such movies as "Blacula" but falls to do so.

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.

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 * 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.

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).

Dr. Hess Green (Duane Jones) is stabbed four times with an infected knife. It doesn't kill him but leaves him with an insatiable taste for blood. He meets beautiful and strong Ganja (Marlene Clark) and falls in love with her. But can he love a woman with his blood lust? A disastrous, boring and just dreadful attempt to make an art horror film. I was "lucky" enough to see the 110 minute uncut version. I had trouble making it through! The film was made on a very low budget so it looks pretty bad. It also is constantly throwing African music and images in the viewers face (that's where Hess got infected). It's (somewhat) interesting at first but leads to nothing. The sound recording is muddled and the camera-work is so off that I couldn't figure out what I was watching at times. Conversations go on endlessly with no rhyme or reason. Most of them have nothing to do with the plot! This moves VERY slowly and the constant cutting to imagery and African music quickly gets annoying. Acting is no help. Jones (so good in "Night of the Living Dead") is terrible here. He takes forever just to finish one sentence and acts like he's on drugs most of the time. Clark plays Ganja as a foul-mouthed obnoxious woman. I couldn't stand her at all and couldn't figure out WHY Hess loved her! Director Bill Gunn complained that people didn't "get" what he was doing with this film. All he was doing was trying to mix two genres--horror and art--together and it never works. Most importantly this is never once scary or creepy. A sleep-inducing mess not worth your time. Ignore all the critics who are raving about it. They just see a film with virtually no plot and tons of pointless imagery and immediately decide it's an art film and a masterpiece. You know what? It isn't.

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.

While this film does have some interesting ideas (vampirism as an addiction), the execution is horrible. The narrative is practically non-existent (and needlessly overlong and confusing). The acting (except Duane Jones) is horrible...the actors blow lines right on camera! The dialogue is almost impossible to hear. The whole thing comes off as very amateurish. Not recommended.

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.