Horror is the most malleable of film genres. Filmmakers with something to say have often turned to this oft-maligned and/or underestimated genre to tell their stories thanks to a built-in marketability factor and the relative cheapness of producing such entertainment. Writer/Director Bill Gunn’s impressionistic, non-linear, downright experimental/avant garde proto-vampire tale is about far more than the consumption of crimson life. This certainly came as a shock to his producers and it’s not a surprise that Ganja & Hess failed to make a dent at the box office but now stands as an impressive, if lengthy, example of arthouse filmmaking masquerading as exploitation, with two brilliant performances living in the center of this blood-soaked vortex.
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