Ganja & Hess
| Ganja & Hess | |
|---|---|
DVD cover
|
|
| Directed by | Bill Gunn |
| Produced by | Chiz Schultz |
| Written by | Bill Gunn |
| Starring |
Marlene Clark Duane Jones |
| Music by | Sam Waymon |
| Cinematography | James E. Hinton |
| Edited by | Victor Kanefsky |
| Distributed by | Kelly-Jordan Enterprises |
|
Release date
|
|
|
Running time
|
110 minutes 78 minutes (cut version) |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $350,000 |
Ganja & Hess is a 1973 experimental horror film written and directed by Bill Gunn and starring Marlene Clark and Duane Jones. The film follows the exploits of anthropologist Dr. Hess Green (Jones) who becomes a vampire after being stabbed by his intelligent, but unstable, assistant (Gunn) with an ancient cursed dagger. Green falls in love with his assistant's widow, Ganja (Clark), who learns Green's dark secret.
This film contains the only other lead role for Duane Jones, best known for starring in the 1968 film Night of the Living Dead (though he appeared in bit-parts in other movies).
The film was screened at the 1973 Cannes Film Festival. It was remade by Spike Lee in 2014 as Da Sweet Blood of Jesus.
The film follows Dr. Hess Green (Duane Jones), a wealthy black anthropologist who is doing research on the Myrthians, an ancient African nation of blood drinkers. One night, while staying in Green's lavish mansion, richly decorated with African art, Green's unstable assistant George Meda (writer/director Gunn) threatens suicide. Green successfully talks him down, but later that night Meda attacks and stabs Green with a Myrthian ceremonial dagger, and then kills himself. Green survives, but on discovering the body, drinks Meda's blood; he has become a vampire endowed with immortality and a need for fresh blood. Though he steals several bags of blood from a doctor's office, he finds that he needs fresh victims.
Soon, Meda's estranged wife, Ganja Meda (Marlene Clark), arrives at Green's house searching for her husband. Green and Meda quickly become lovers, and she moves into Green's expansive mansion. When she unwittingly discovers her husband's corpse frozen in Green's wine cellar she is initially upset, but then agrees to marry her host, who turns her into a vampire as well. Ganja is initially horrified by her new existence, but Green teaches her how to survive. Soon, he brings a young man home, who Ganja seduces and then kills. The two vampires dispose of the body in the water.
...
Wikipedia