Ganja and Hess

Duration: 110 mi

Year Published: 1973

Creator: Third World Newsreel

Format: 16mm

Color: Color

Sound: sound

Description: Bill Gunn's first feature has been described as an intellectual's vampire story and was suppressed in the United States because it was not the Hollywood genre film the producers had expected. Combining straight documentary, high melodrama, dark ritual and cool realism, it is the story of Dr. Hess Green, an archivist/anthropologist who becomes addicted to blood after being stabbed with a ritual knife from an ancient African civilization he has been studying. The film deals with the doctor's relationship to his chauffeur who is also a part-time minister, his assistant George Meda and and Meda's wife Ganja. When Meda, a frustrated, suicidal artist, finally succeeds in killing himself, Hess sucks his blood and preserves his body in a freezer. Ganja arrives in town, discovers her husband's corpse and quickly becomes Hess's bride. The couple shares a vampirish existence before Hess seeks redemption at his chauffeur's church. Ganja, on the other hand, lives on to perpetuate the vampire tradition. (Does not circulate)