Ganja & Hess (USA, 1973)

Once again, I’m catching up with a film that appears on multiple critics’ lists of best horror movies. Ganja & Hess has been on my radar for a long time, but I never really heard enough details to make me want to seek it out until now. It has a reputation for being unusual, and even the name doesn’t really sell it as a vampire film.

Ganja & Hess is, however, a significant moment in black American cinema. It has achieved almost mythic status amongst critics in the fifty or so years since its release, and was remade by Spike Lee in 2014 as Da Sweet Blood of Jesus. The original 1973 version also stars Duane Jones as Hess Green, five years after he made his name as the lead in Night of the Living Dead.

Ganja and Hess is currently available on DVD and Bluray.

Synopsis

Dr Hess Green, an anthropologist, apparently dies after his assistant, George Medea, stabs him with an ancient ceremonial African dagger. George shoots himself, and Hess, risen from the dead, feasts on his blood. Hess realises he has become a vampire, but sees his condition more in terms of an addiction to blood. He starts stealing blood bags and killing victims to feed his habit.

When George’s estranged wife, Ganja, returns to town, needing somewhere to stay, she contacts Hess while searching for her husband. She ends up moving in with Hess, and they become lovers. Hess hides his habit from Ganja until she discovers George’s corpse in a walk-in freezer. This somehow brings the couple closer together and they wed before Hess turns Ganja into a vampire as well.

But can a relationship built on blood and death survive? And will Hess ever manage to kick his blood habit?

General Thoughts

It was interesting watching this so soon after Arrebato. They’re both art house horror films about addiction from the 1970s, but very different in tone and content. While Arrebato doesn’t exactly celebrate addiction, it doesn’t go out of its way to condemn it either. Ganja & Hess is far closer to a cautionary tale, albeit a very abstracted and strange one. In that respect, maybe it’s closer to Abel Ferrara’s The Addiction, but I’d call this a far more successful film.

The sound design and music are integral to the feel of Ganja & Hess. The soundtrack is filled with drones, loops, and distorted chants, creating a pervasive psychedelic feel. Peppered amongst this are voiceovers and more conventional songs, culminating in the diegetic music from a church service. Ganja & Hess may be a visually compelling film, but its true strength lies in the landscape of its sounds.

The version of vampirism presented in Ganja & Hess is a subtle one. While Hess and, later, Ganja, do drink blood and kill victims, the only other thing that sets them apart from ordinary people is immortality. These vampires don’t even have fangs, feeding their blood habit by cutting their victims with knives.

There is a lot of sex and nudity in Ganja & Hess to go with all that blood. I can imagine this was shocking in 1973, although now some of the sex scenes just feel like padding. It is interesting, however, to see a film mixing blood, sex and death so intimately 10 years before the AIDS epidemic changed the world. It feels ahead of its time in that respect.

Verdict

While I’m not entirely sure I would say I enjoyed Ganja & Hess, I certainly appreciated and admired it. This is a fascinating film, experimental in style and transgressive for its time. The unusual storytelling, naturalistic performances, and wildly imaginative sound design combine to make what is really quite a trippy experience. Some scenes feel more like hallucinations than cinema.

The main problem, however, is pacing. This is a film where people speak in monologues, and there are long stretches where not much really happens. It is rarely dull, but this ponderous pace can try the patience. I understand that there is a shorter version of the film, recut by the studio against the director’s wishes and released under the name Blood Couple. This is not the kind of thing I normally approve of, but I am tempted to seek it out and see if the tighter editing improves anything.

Much as with Arrebato and A Page of Madness, I would recommend Ganja & Hess to people who enjoy experimental films or have an interest in the history of cinema. If you’re looking for a more accessible, entertaining vampire movie, however, you will probably be disappointed.

The October Horror Movie Challenge

Please do join in and share your own thoughts with us about this or any other films as the month goes on. You can usually find us on BlueSky, Reddit, Discord, or lurking in the dark corners of your home.

If you would like to play along at home, my provisional selections are:

Heretic (USA, 2024)
The Sadness (Taiwan, 2021)
The Uninvited (USA, 1944)
The Lodge (UK/USA, 2019)
WolfCop (Canada, 2014)
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (Czechoslovakia, 1970)
The Monkey (USA, 2025)
Sister Midnight (India/UK, 2024)
Roadgames (Australia, 1981)
Nightmare City (Italy, 1985)
Dangerous Animals (Australia, 2025)
Dead Talents Society (Taiwan, 2024)
Winterbeast (USA, 1992)
Byzantium (UK/Ireland, 2013)
The Ugly Stepsister (Norway, 2025)
A Page of Madness (Japan, 1926)
Heart Eyes (USA, 2025)
Grafted (New Zealand, 2024)
Arrebato (Spain, 1979)
Hatching (Finland, 2022)
Abigail (USA, 2024)
Ganja & Hess (USA, 1973)
The Devil’s Bath (Austria, 2025)
Pieces (Spain, 1982)
Infested (France, 2023)
Best Wishes to All (Japan, 2022)
A Cat in the Brain (Italy, 1990)
Enys Men (UK, 2022)
Creature From the Black Lagoon (USA, 1954)
Perewangan (Indonesia, 2024)
Bring Her Back (Australia, 2025)

A Final Note

If you have been enticed here by these posts, please do look around at some of our other film reviews. We also have a podcast, called The Good Friends of Jackson Elias, which occasionally covers horror films. If this appeals, you might want to check out some of the following episodes.