To ease me out of the ugly world of doomed romances, star-crossed psychosexual throwdowns, and matches made in hell, I decided to come down easy with 1973’s Ganja & Hess. Dreamy, surreal, brutally sad and chaotically stylish, this film puts a new spin on the threadbare vampire mythos while tackling issues of mental health, addiction, spirituality, and the struggles of African Americans in an increasingly violent, unforgiving America.
Like all good vampire tales, the movie looks at the process and consequences of transformation. Specifically, the transformation of the imperious Dr. Hess (Duane Jones--yes, that Duane Jones, of Night of the Living Dead). After being attacked by his suicidal assistant with an ancient dagger from an African blood-drinking cult, he finds that his lust for blood is insatiable and he will do anything to get his fix--even licking gloppy pools of it off a cold bathroom floor, stealing it from blood banks, or hacking up sex workers. When the vanished assistant’s wife Ganja (Marlene Clark) comes calling, it doesn’t take long for Hess to start imagining what his new, eternal life might look like with a gorgeous woman at his side.
I’ve been lighter than usual on the summary because, like most vampire stories, even one as bold and experimental as this one, it hits a few predictable beats, so I want to leave the surprises intact. Just know that the dream-like first half gives way to some gorgeous art house strangeness--cinema verite scenes featuring a church service/symbolic exorcism, scenes of endlessly, inextricably blended sexuality and violence, and an enigmatic ending that leaves the viewer wanting to stay just longer in that cursed world.
Bill Gunn, the writer/director, was a prolific African-American playwright who was asked to create a vampire film with a black cast after the phenomenal success of Blacula. In true art-house fashion, Gunn took this simple premise and gave back a gorgeous meditation on death, race, and addiction. If you’re like me and you love a little more thoughtfulness with your gore, this movie should have your attention. All the subtle, sad, and scary stuff arty places like A24 puts out takes their cues from this movie, making it feel eerily timely today.
Exploitation films--as their name would imply--have a troubled history. They’ve been able to keep their feet in two worlds, to simultaneously kill and cuddle Schrodinger’s cat. On the one hand, they were usually soulless attempts to cash in on some very real problems such as racism, sexism, and homophobia. But, through providing a venue for representation, they also became strange rallying cries. Take the roughie genre par excellence, the Rape Revenge. Carol Clover, lover of slashers and Scandinavian folk lit, author of Men, Women, and Chainsaws (another must for any smart-ass horror fan) unpacks the push and pull this kind of film can elicit. Certainly, many people who went to see movies like I Spit on Your Grave, were there for all the wrong reasons--namely, to see a beautiful young woman tortured and repeatedly assaulted. But, at the same time, women watching (or men who weren’t in the audience for less-than-sterling reasons) careened through the final act with grim glee. Certainly the film wasn’t out to be anyone’s feminist manifesto, but in the all-tan-and-beige, ultra-masculine world of the 70’s New Hollywood, the Rape Revenge was often a space to showcase women, not just as sex objects (though, let me be clear--that was definitely part of it) but as vital, dangerous protagonists who took their destiny by the balls and shoved it straight into a whirling motorboat engine (not to spoil I Spit on Your Grave).
Ganja & Hess similarly find ways to empower and subvert. Duane Johnson’s Dr. Hess is wealthy, powerful, stylish, and smart as hell. Before his transformation (and even long after), he’s the quintessential man of the world. Gunn is careful to frame him surrounded by opulence in nearly every scene--cradled in the body of his luxury car, encased in the beautiful museum that is his vast estate, basking al fresco on his palatial patio. Think of a 70’s movie--go ahead, it really doesn’t matter which one. Now, if there are characters of color in it, describe them. What are their lives like? Exactly. In a time when people of color were almost exclusively used as heavies, pimps, and prostitutes, as floating signifiers of urban decay, Ganja & Hess celebrates black success.
Similarly, Gunn gives enormous amounts of time to let Marlene Clark shine as Ganja. Clark is a perfect match for Johnson--serene but with an absolutely sit-up-and-pay-attention sense of command. In my favorite scene, Gunn holds the camera on Ganja’s face for minutes while she tells a story about her childhood. The result is one of the film’s most poignant moments, a glimpse of vulnerability in Ganja’s tough exterior. Not many movies, especially those labeled “exploitation” films, spent any time delving into the complex inner lives of their heroines, but Gunn pitches his movie to the stratosphere, where he finds space to deal with and transgress the normal boundaries of a vampire film.
The horror in Ganja & Hess isn’t focused on gore but on the spiritual vacuum of addiction. Hess is an exemplar of his community--educated, cultured, while still trying to help others (one of his unfortunate dinner guests is a coordinator for a community center he helps support), but after enduring a stab from the Mythrian dagger, he loses all control of his morality. From stealing blood to murdering sex workers to the symbolic rape of willfully inducting people into the vampiric life without their consent, Hess is a changed man. The film’s narrator, Reverend Luther, tells us that Hess isn’t truly evil, he’s sick, he’s a creature compelled by need, but even Hess himself questions this intersection between need and desire. When, late in the film, Ganja realizes what she has become, her scream of visceral horror is one of the most haunting things ever featured in a vampire film and her revulsion at the new necessities of her life go a long way to take some of the unearned glamour out of all those Euro-vamp films. For Ganja & Hess, addiction isn’t moody heroin chic, it’s ugly and life-changing in the worst way.
After their transformations, these two vibrant people are lost to the demands of their bodies, victimizing anyone who stands too close, preying on the less fortunate. The Western vampire myth has always centered around the idea of the elite literally feeding on others, and this film doubles down on this idea. In this way, Ganja & Hess anticipate the equally cerebral, doubly (pun intended) scary Us in its look at how wealth and status can estrange us from our common humanity.
Ganja & Hess deserve your time and attention. If not for the performances, then for the weird, crazy structure, the dreamlike imagery and the boundary-pushing experimentation Gunn pulls off long before it was cool to make horror look thoughtful. More than a relic, Ganja & Hess is an under-loved classic the horror community needs to celebrate more.
Pennie Sublime