Ganja & Hess: The Art-House Vampire Film Nobody Financed Twice

Mon, 02 Feb 2026 09:00:00 +0000

There is a particular kind of movie miracle that only happens when someone hands an artist the wrong brief and looks away for eighteen months. In 1972 Blacula had made money, and the small outfit Kelly-Jordan Enterprises wanted their own Black vampire picture to ride the wave. They gave the job to Bill Gunn — playwright, novelist, actor, a genuine New York intellect — and Gunn took the money and made something that has almost nothing to do with the assignment. Ganja & Hess is a vampire film the way a fever dream is a nap. It played the 1973 Cannes Critics’ Week, one of the very few American films chosen that year, and the audience is said to have applauded for a good long while. Then it came home, and the people who paid for it did not recognise what they had bought.

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Ganja & Hess: The Art-House Vampire Film Nobody Financed Twice