By Keri O’Shea
When Blacula appeared back in 1972, it was an immediate, if a surprise, success: the way that it catered to audiences via its excellent cast without talking down to anybody (the odd comic turn notwithstanding) whilst adding something strong and new to an already tried-and-tested vampire horror genre saw certain cinemas taking record profits, and you have to strike while the iron is hot – so it didn’t take long (only a few months in fact) before film studios were eagerly trying to commission their own Blacula before the crowds moved away, spending their cash on the next next big thing. Step up one-time director Bill Gunn. Gunn, being a practical man, was all too happy to take advantage of the money being made available for a new movie, ostensibly another ‘black vampire’ film – but his resulting work, Ganja & Hess (also known by other titles, amongst which – you’ve guessed it – Black Vampire) plays fast and loose with the vampire theme to such an extent that it’s dubiously a part of the genre at all. The studio hated the resultant work, and demanded that it be so cut and edited that Gunn, angry and disappointed, took his name off the credits. The film has been knocking around only in varying versions in the years since, but never until this point – and the work of Eureka Entertainment – has this cut been restored. So, at last, we get to see the film the way the director intended, or pretty damn close. And, after all that, I find it’s quite unlike anything else I’ve seen – sometimes brilliantly, sometimes bafflingly so.
One of the first directorial decisions to confuse the hell out of me is the way Gunn references what I’d say are key plot points – by doing it all off-screen, either via some brief on-screen text just after the opening credits roll, or even more infuriatingly (according to your personal preferences, of course) by having composer Sam Waymon singing about what’s happened. In any case, we learn that anthropologist Dr. Hess Green (Duane Jones, a.k.a Ben from Night of the Living Dead) was conducting research on the legendary Myrthian civilisation in Africa when he was stabbed by a ceremonial dagger. The attack failed to kill him, and on his recovery, he found himself craving human blood. This is all before we really meet Hess, however, so it’s made clear from this choice of introduction that we can forget any expectations of a standard narrative, or indeed anything approaching what we might associate with either the horror or the equally nebulous ‘blaxploitation’ genres. Had Gunn made the choice to film that which we’re left to glean here, costs also allowing of course, then there would have been plenty of options for sex, action, gore, horror or anything similar, but obviously that was never the director’s intention.
With that established, we’re pitched into an oddly art-house state of affairs; lengthy, naturalistic scenes inside an evangelical New York church contribute little, other than allowing us to meet the pastor there, who doubles up as Hess’s chauffeur and does have some plot relevance in due course. We find Hess himself established in a fine house in New York; there are a lot of sequences pitched in to hit us over the head repeatedly with the fact that he’s an intelligent and refined man, mainly through lots of still shots of pieces of art, and we see this intelligent and refined man (who owns pieces of art, I don’t know if I mentioned that) managing his blood addiction carefully, though being forced to engage in some risky behaviour – such as stealing from blood banks. Things grow more complicated when Hess takes on a new assistant, Meda (Gunn himself) and the unstable newcomer attacks him. Hess does of course fail to die, and when Meda commits suicide, Hess hides the body in the cellar of the house – after drinking his blood, of course.
This little indiscretion could have been forgotten, were it not for the fact that Meda’s wife, Ganja (the superb Marlene Clark) has just arrived back in the US and is looking for him. More to the point, she’s broke, and she was hoping she could join her husband in his new place of employ, as she can’t afford a hotel…so, reluctantly at first, Hess allows her to stay with him, but they soon develop a romantic relationship which will become complicated by his wish to keep her with him forever and her discovery of his condition…
Although in some ways the arrival of Clark heralds a new act in the film as a whole – Ganja Meda is a formidable character and a very strong female lead – Ganja & Hess never drops its strange veneer and perhaps clings to it all the more, refracting the later plot developments through the uncertain lenses of dream sequences, flashbacks, partial memories and lots of ‘what did I just see?’ You’ll notice that I keep returning to the presence or otherwise of ‘the plot’ and perhaps this is my error; maybe, trying to see the film in this way is to miss the point. I don’t think a film needs to be either straight-laced or incomprehensible, though, and in many places I found Ganja & Hess to be art-house for art-house’s sake, full of improvised dialogue (which I rarely get on with since the aversion therapy that was Kill List), clunky camera angles and odd stylistic decisions. There are also references to religion and redemption which labour the film somewhat, either left on the periphery or forced into view. For all of that, this is a film which is clearly ambitious, and obviously wanted to do something atmospheric on a low budget and a severely restricted time-frame – which it does achieve, whatever misgivings I have about the film overall.
In terms of what it does with the vampire motif then, it pulls away from it to such an extent that it really can be said to be an original vision – overtly discussing blood-drinking in terms of addiction and using it to explore a turbulent relationship between two interesting, if lesser-understood, central characters. There are also many impressive, haunting minor details in the film – key to which is the excellent soundtrack, with ‘the call’ of the African tribe which heralds the blood urge a stand-out, evocative device. The overall effect of Ganja & Hess is to draw you in despite yourself, ultimately, and it’s definitely a film which would merit repeat viewings. If you’re interested in the ancestry of the modern vampire movie, then Ganja & Hess is a distant cousin, but an important member of the family nonetheless.
The Eureka release will come with a tonne of extra features, including audio commentaries by producer Chiz Schultz, Marlene Clark, cinematographer James Hinton and composer Sam Waymon, scene-by-scene commentary from historian David Kalat, a documentary about the film – The Blood of the Thing – and a 24-page booklet, featuring an essay by film critic Kim Newman.
Ganja & Hess will be released by Eureka Entertainment as part of a dual format edition on 26th January 2015.