Day 18

Ganja & Hess (1973)

Directed by Bill Gunn

Ganja & Hess is the story of an anthropologist, Dr. Hess Green, who finds himself dealing with being turned into a vampire after his assistant stabs him with an ancient cursed dagger. Eventually, Dr. Hess meets and falls in love with his assistant’s wife, Ganja, who learns of Hess’ secret. The story of Ganja & Hess isn’t told in the most straightforward way because this film is a kind of surreal experimental take on vampire fiction, which will make or break the movie for a lot of people. In fact, I think this will be one of the shorter reviews for this month because I can sum up my thoughts with just about one phrase which is, “I don’t get it.” I just recently talked about Hausu, which is a surreal horror-comedy that used experimental imagery as a way to convey horror and comedy while keeping the narrative structure intact, but Ganja & Hess seems to do the opposite, using understandable imagery but setting up an experimental narrative structure. I often had no idea what was supposed to be happening or what purpose it had in the plot, and when I knew what was going on I wasn’t always a huge fan.

What kept me from enjoying the film, apart from the experimental nature of the structure, was that I had no love for any of the characters we met. Everyone felt arm’s length away, emotionally, and even though the acting was good, Duane Jones of Night of the Living Dead fame stars as Dr. Hess and Marlene Clark as Ganja, it wasn’t easy to connect with anyone present. It almost seemed intentional, like, yeah, of course people who are vampires would be unlikable assholes and of course, gender relations are super screwed up so there’s a weird power imbalance going on through the whole thing. There’s a lot happening, and some neat visuals, but however much you’ll get out of Ganja & Hess depends on you being the kind of person who wants to see this kind of movie. I was told this was a great Black Vampire movie and while those elements are present, I wasn’t exactly warned of the unique structure or nature of the narrative or visuals, and I probably wouldn’t have watched it had I been. If you’re really interested in the history of black horror cinema I’d still recommend checking this out, or you have a love for experimental fiction this is something to look at. For everyone else, maybe skip this one.