melvelvit-1 Even though it got a standing ovation at Cannes, the independent producers were appalled when they hired playwright/director Bill Gunn to make a blaxsploitation horror film a la BLACULA and he turned in a cerebral allegory on black identity. They cut about 40 minutes and released it in the U.S. as BLOOD COUPLE where it sank without a trace. Gunn's original vision remained "lost" until recently but because the negative was cut, the MoA had to reconstruct the film from various 35mm prints and it's now being appreciated as an artistically innovative contribution to black cinema's history.The story, such as it is, is slight: wealthy anthropologist Hess Green's unstable assistant stabs him with an ancient African sacrificial knife and he becomes a "vampire", although not in the traditional sense; there's no fangs and the good doctor can go out in the daylight and even attend church. He satisfies his craving for blood by killing pimps, hookers, and stealing plasma bags but complications arise when Ganja, his late assistant's avaricious wife, arrives at Hess' mansion looking for her husband. She and Hess bond despite her finding her husband's body in the freezer and Ganja & Hess soon marry. Hess "turns" her and, finally finding redemption in love, wants them to stand in the shadow of the Cross (the only thing that can kill "vampires") but because of the life she's had, Ganja actually prefers her new one and has no intention of giving it up.Culture clash, assimilation, colonialism, "Uncle Tom", pagan African religion vs the Baptist church, and "the new black woman" all come into play in what's basically the antithesis of "blaxsploitation" but because I've never lived the "black experience", I didn't connect with all of it (if anything, I saw feminism with Ganja reversing what happens to Lot's wife in Sodom). That said, one would have to be blind not to see there's a lot bubbling just beneath the surface and like Masaki Kobayashi's KAIDAN, I was carried along by the film's visual style even if the tale was rather slow-moving and not as horrific as I'd like. Still, the film stayed in my mind for a couple of days after watching it. Spike Lee remade it as DA SWEET BLOOD OF Jesus.

TheRedDeath30 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 masturbation 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.

InjunNose I've never seen the full, unexpurgated version of "Ganja and Hess" as director Bill Gunn intended it to be viewed. However, since a handful of other reviewers have mentioned the little-seen edited version, I thought I'd offer my thoughts on it. I remember when Duane Jones's obituary appeared in "Fangoria" magazine in January 1989. I was a huge "Night of the Living Dead" fan and his passing came as a shock to me. The people at "Fango" gave him a beautiful, deeply respectful send-off; the article contained an interview with Jones (a rarity in itself) as well as a discussion of his other horror film roles, the most prominent of which was in "Ganja and Hess". I had never heard of this film prior to reading the article (which also mentioned that the movie could be found on video under various alternate titles, including "Blood Couple" and "Black Vampire"), but it sounded intriguing and I kept an eye out for it. Just about a year later, I found a brand new VHS copy of "Blood Couple" at the supermarket, of all places. Before I comment on the film itself, let me say that I fully understand why Bill Gunn, Duane Jones, and company did not care for "Blood Couple". Reading about the uncut "Ganja and Hess", it's obvious that "Couple" was a savage edit of Gunn's labor of love, and at times it doesn't make sense even on its own terms as an 83-minute exploitation flick. But by the same token, it contains quite a bit of footage that went unused in "Ganja and Hess", and there are plenty of frightening, gut-wrenching moments. In those dim, distant years before rare films found new life on DVD, it was nice to see Gunn's movie in any form. In "Blood Couple", the murder of Dr. Hess Green (Jones) by his assistant George Meda (Gunn) takes place during the first ten or fifteen minutes of the film. This is followed by the harrowing scene of Green's resurrection, Meda's suicide, and Green's terrible realization that he is now addicted to human blood. The next scene, which is almost as disturbing, shows a desperate, tearful Hess Green reciting a prayer and then attempting to kill himself, too--but he cannot. He was rendered immortal when Meda stabbed him with the ancient Myrthian "dagger" (actually a piece of wood, sharpened at the end and containing bits of human bone). He will not die unless the shadow of a cross touches his heart, which is mentioned--but not clearly explained--in a brief song on the film's soundtrack. This is where things start to get a little fuzzy. Apparently, a curse was visited upon the Myrthians that they should live forever unless they were touched by the shadow of a cross...but, as the song says, "Christ had not come yet and the cross did not exist", so the Myrthians were doomed to hundreds of years of existence as blood addicts. But who cursed them? And how did this unnamed person know that Christ ever *would* come? I guess it's silly to expect too many answers from a sliced-and-diced exploitation movie. Hess Green's son is nowhere to be found in "Blood Couple", and Ganja (Marlene Clark) apparently dies along with her new husband in the film's grim conclusion. Gunn's direction and dialogue are often self-consciously artsy, and when he stumbles, he stumbles rather badly (mostly in the early scenes featuring Green and Meda). In my opinion, however, Gunn scores more hits than misses even in this edited version of his film. From the moment "Blood Couple" begins, there is a pervasive mood of unease and doom; you *know* that terrible things are going to happen. That kind of mood is very difficult to achieve, judging from all the stacks of lousy horror movies out there, and that's why I give this film an 8.

jackrabbit1969 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.