Ganja & Hess – The Complete Edition
Picture: C
Sound: C Extras: B+ Film: B+
Ganja & Hess (1973) is back in a new DVD
edition from All Day Entertainment and Image Entertainment. As previously reviewed in its now out of
print edition, it is an amazing low budget Horror film that is filled with
elements of Vampirism, the occult, and a struggle between Christianity in the
Western (read white) and African (read black) worlds. There are the white churches and their take
on Christ, as well as the Baptist take that is primarily African-American. In addition to this simple duality is the
additional hauntings of Voodoo and even Catholicism that run throughout this
film. Even after al the Blade feature films and awful TV
series, not to mention other very, very bad Vampire and Voodoo releases, the
film has only gained in value.
To recap, Dr. Hess Green (Duane Jones of George Romero’s
original 1968 Night of the Living Dead, which has had yet another sequel
since the release of the last version of this film on DVD) is stabbed under
strange circumstances, by an ancient African dagger relic, suddenly gets a
thirst for blood, and can remain immortal except for the quenching that one
appetite. Or at least that seems to be
the case in the beginning. Besides the
struggle between the various religious movements from thousands of years of
Christianity, there is the doctor’s murder of George Mead (the film’s
writer-director, Bill
Gunn). This brings the arrival of his
wife Ganja (Marlene Clark), who starts to fall for the doctor, despite demands
about the whereabouts of her husband.
Logic gives way to the supernatural throughout the film in
a way that is sudden, creepy, yet ultimately makes sense. The acting is not bad either, thanks to
Gunn’s tight ideas about what he is doing.
This film was butchered into at least six other known versions that
could not have made any sense, but it is now the way the late Gunn intended
it. It is a lost classic of authentic
Black cinema in the United States and a Horror gem that manages to dodge the
so-called “Blaxploitation” cycle altogether, though several of those senseless
versions tried hard to make it fit that mode.
Looking at it again, a few years later, its status as at
least a minor classic has become more obvious as the genre has suffered through
a new cycle of inane remakes of any Horror film with a known name just to
squeeze a few bucks out of it. Happening
in fuller force since the first DVD was issued and our last review happened
three years ago, it has been spared the degradation for now. Maybe because it is so subversive,
challenging and is still ahead of its time as portraying African Americans as
intelligent and able-bodied. In recent
such horror films, like the bad remakes, African Americans (if present at all)
have been incidental and the only African American Horror projects have been
incidental to Hip Hop projects that have all been very bad and never understood
(or even cared about) the genre.
The film is as visual as anything and requires a serious
attention span, something increasingly lacking in audiences thanks to Hollywood
deadly combo of “dumbing down = quick bucks” that is finally backfiring. It becomes a purposely creepy and even
profound cinematic experience that has a true sense of density and palpability
that makes it as effective now as the first time you see it. Kalat’s comparison to Carl Theodore Dreyer’s
classic Vampyr (1932) is accurate,
though the film is not trying to rip it off by any means. I agreed with this point as addressed in my
essay on vampirism in cinema which you can read more about at the following
link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/essay/222/Nosferatu
Overall, how this film can be so great and literally
hundreds like it can be so bad and disposable with tons of financial and
technological resources in embarrassing.
More and more, Ganja & Hess is becoming an undiscovered genre
classic that may even be more. You
should immediately put in on your must-see list, whether you have actually seen
it before or never have. If you saw a
lesser butchered version on film, TV or tape, you will definitely want to trade
up.
The anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image is from various
materials in 35mm or Super 16mm and is the same transfer as the previous DVD. It was Super 16mm that the film originated in
and cinematographer James Hinton did an amazing job with stocks of the time in
capturing the fictional tale. Super 16mm
was new at the time, but a step above the 16mm that was being used on many a
documentary and Rockumentary. Though
quality varies at times, the interesting choices of color, the open spaces, and
unusual angles add up to a very visually memorable experience. The print materials show their age. It can be said that the film had somewhat of
an influence on Stanley Kubrick’s two tales of domestic horrors: The Shining
(1980) and Eyes Wide Shut (1999), but you can judge for yourself.
The Dolby Digital 2.0 is Mono for the film, while Stereo
for the commentary track. Though it is
not known if any of the music exists in stereo, the sound was recorded on
location for a majority of the film and the persons involved in restoration
have kept it in its original mono. That
location recording has some minor problems.
The combination of music score and sound effects design is remarkable
and will make you wish the film was stereo, but it is extremely effective in
either case. This reconstruction job is
good enough to be very effective.
Together, sound and picture, along with its various elements, averages
out.
With even further advances in restoration, photochemical
and digital, it will be interesting to see what happens when this gets issued
in high definition and future 35mm theatrical releases. All Day is not dealing with any HD formats
yet, though Image has initially threw their support behind HD-DVD and if any
All Day/Image film would really work and make sense in the new format, this
would be at the top of the list. David
Kalat has painstakingly reconstructed so many films that he has become one of
the restoration champs in saving vital films everyone should see. We have reviewed just about all of them and
he has made All Day one of the great indie video labels. Though expensive, his move in to HD cannot happen
soon enough.
Though this DVD and restoration was issued back in 1998
form a transfer master made at that time, it still holds up enough eight years
later despite more obvious flaws. The
original extras included the fun, smart commentary track, 1991 Video
Watchdog essay by Tim Lucas & David Walker in DVD-ROM form that you can
print and photo gallery. The new and
very welcome extras include the excellent The
Blood Of The Thing featurette where the principles who made the film talk
on camera about the long road to getting the film made running about a
half-hour, the screenplay in DVD-ROM form that you can print and an amusing Ganja & Hess Reduced segment Kalat does audio commentary on to this
abbreviated version of the film which highlights key scenes and expands
analysis on them. A great independent
Horror classic just got better with the upgraded special edition. Ganja & Hess – The Complete Edition
is simply (I’ll say it again) must-see for all serious film fans, especially
those who fancy themselves big Horror and Vampire fans.
- Nicholas Sheffo
