Review of Ganja & Hess

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.