Ganja & Hess

Ganja & Hess is one of those movies that I've seen on lists of influential films, but didn't know that much about; when I saw that netflix said it was a Vampire movie, I added it to my list.

When I saw that it was starring Duane Jones, from Night of the Living Dead, as Dr Hess Green, an anthropologist who becomes a vampire after being stabbed with a cursed knife by his crazy assistant, I was really excited to see it.

The crazy assistant kills himself, and Hess, after recovering from the stabbing, laps up the assistants blood from the floor like a cat drinking spilled milk.

He resorts to stealing blood from clinics and killing prostitutes to survive when his assistant's wife, Ganja, shows up.

OF COURSE they fall in love- even after she discovers her husbands body in Hess's basement. "Every body's some kind of freak," she says, true to the early seventies tone of the movie.

Ganja & Hess is an odd movie. Apparently the producers we looking for another Blacula and what they got was a trippy, hypnotic thing, like David Lynch doing an Blaxplotation film. David Lynch like the crazy parts of Mulholland Dr., as opposed to the slightly more accessible Lynch of Wild at Heart or Blue Velvet.

As far as vampire movies go, Ganja & Hess is unique and not for everybody- but if you're a serious fan of the genre and tired of the cliches you need to watch this movie.

Post script: I've been thinking about how visually explicit this movie gets toward the end. So I'm adding this bit to let readers know- it's not for kids. If you've come to the genre from, oh, say... Twilight or Van Helsing, you might not like this movie. If the Hunger was more your cup of tea, then you're set.