Ganja And Hess

Dr. Hess Green (Duane Jones from Night of the Living Dead) is a black anthropologist who develops a taste for blood after he’s accidentally stabbed with a dagger from an ancient civilization. Ganja (Marlene Clark) becomes infected as well, and the two become lovers and mutual tormentors in their joint journey toward death. Certainly the most original and intellectually ambitious of all the blaxploitation films of the 70s, Bill Gunn’s uneven and seldom shown but thought-provoking 1973 horror film is better known in Europe than here; the ritualistic phantasmagoria it creates — aided and abetted by James Hinton’s cinematography — lingers in the mind. 110 min. (JR)

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