Ganja & Hess (1973) on Netflix
Dr. Hess Green, a wealthy anthropologist, studies the Myrthians, an ancient African people of blood drinkers. His assistant stabs him with a dagger, and he survives with a hunger for blood.
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- Netflix3.8/5
- IMDb6.2/103,204 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes90%
Trailer
Plot summary
The wealthy anthropologist Dr. Hess Green is researching the Myrthians, an ancient African people said to have drunk blood. His unstable assistant, George Meda, is staying at Green's mansion, which is filled with African art, when Meda threatens suicide. Green talks him down, but that night Meda stabs him with a Myrthian ceremonial dagger and then takes his own life. Green survives with a hunger for fresh blood, and bags stolen from a doctor's office do not satisfy it. Soon Meda's estranged wife, Ganja Meda, arrives at the house looking for her husband. She and Green become lovers, and she moves into the mansion.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Ganja & Hess (1973)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- In 1972 the independent company Kelly-Jordan Enterprises offered William Gunn, then known as a playwright and stage director, $350,000 to make a "black vampire film"; Gunn told a friend it was the last thing he wanted to do, but took the job to use vampirism as a metaphor for addiction.
- Discouraged by poor box office and unhappy with the film's unusual structure, producers Kelly and Jordan took Ganja & Hess out of distribution and sold it to Heritage Enterprises, which put out a rescored, drastically recut version titled Blood Couple that Gunn disowned.
- The experimental rap trio Clipping sampled lyrics from Sam Waymon's "The Blood of Thing (Part 2) Shadow of the Cross", a song that appears in the film, for their track "Blood of the Fang", and took their album title There Existed an Addiction to Blood from a line in Waymon's song.
- Ganja & Hess is one of only two films in which Duane Jones, best known for starring in the 1968 Night of the Living Dead, played the lead role.
