Ganja & Hess

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Google I would give this piece a 5 star but it received 4.5 because I did not feel like it was a horror film. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 10/27/22 Full Review Cam H Super freaky in many respects Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 05/25/24 Full Review William D On the one hand, it's an interesting and influential work. On the other hand, it's boring and pretentious. Gunn's creativity while handling a very low budget can be appreciated, but the experimental style it puts forward wasn't for me. Rated 2.5/5 Stars •  Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 07/04/23 Full Review Audience Member This movie is sooo boring bro! I had to watch this for a class, and throughout it all I could about was how I could be watching any other black vampire movie. I watched this movie for free, yet I feel like I should ask for a refund. I barley made it half-way through before tapping out. Rated 1/5 Stars •  Rated 1 out of 5 stars 01/18/23 Full Review Audience Member It's only a minor moment, totally insignificant to the story, ostensibly a trivial Easter egg, but I think also a key to interpreting Bill Gunn's arthouse vampire film. Briefly, practically invisibly, no less than the novelist William Gaddis has a silent cameo in the background of a party scene. Though that may seem utterly inconsequential—and no doubt, in the larger sense it is—the spectral appearance of the famed postmodernist gives insight into how to read the often obscure and challenging movie, which, like Gaddis' writing, is something of "a chaos of disconnections, a blizzard of noise." Gaddis and Gunn alike eschew conventional storytelling techniques, not so as to frustrate the audience but (in true vampire fashion) to suck them in, inviting them to participate in and collaborate with the artist, whether writer or director, by filling in some of the gaps and ambiguities that have been left open to interpretation. Of course, Gunn's film eventually met with the same fate as Gaddis' earlier novels (his own success as a novelist wouldn't come until a few years after the release of the movie), with initial negative critical reaction driving a stake through the heart of the work (and Gunn's burgeoning career), calling it "a confusingly vague mélange." Gunn's searing response, however, remains as true today as ever: "There are times when the white critic must sit down and listen. If he cannot listen and learn, then he must not concern himself with black creativity." That all said, even the most dense critics can agree that by far the most horrifying scene in this dense experiment is when Gunn uses his dirty bath water to brush his fangs, which he would later sink into the neck of his detractors. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/30/23 Full Review Audience Member Probably the most intellectually and artistically abstract vampire film of all time. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/01/23 Full Review Read all reviews

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