Podcasts
Race, Religion, and Vampires in Bill Gunn’s ‘Ganja & Hess’ [Horror Queers Podcast]
Bathtub Teeth Brushing.
Trace and I are cruising through April en route to our live show at Salem Horror Festival this weekend, but we’ve been keeping busy with episodes on Stephen Dunn’s Closet Monster, Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Killing of a Sacred Deer, and, most recently, Tony Scott’s The Hunger.
This week we celebrated the 50th anniversary of trailblazing Black queer writer/director Bill Gunn‘s Ganja & Hess (1973). This gorgeous, surreal, and unconventional vampire film stars Duane Jones and Marlene Clark as the titular pair of lovers.
Hess (Jones) is a multi-hyphenate Doctor who is also secretly a vampire. He often preys on members of his community, though his wealth and education keeps him isolated. When suicidal assistant George Meda (Gunn) takes his own life at Hess’ home, the man’s wife (Clark) quickly comes calling.
What begins as an investigation quickly turns into a sexualized affair, but as the bodies pile up, it’s only a matter of time before Ganja & Hess’ vampiric activities are discovered. Or will Hess’ desire to be free of the curse prompt him to seek out a more permanent religious solution from Reverend Luther Williams (musician Sam Waymon)?
Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get a new episode every Wednesday. You can subscribe on iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeartRadio, SoundCloud, TuneIn, Amazon Music, Acast, Google Podcasts, and RSS.
Episode 226 – Ganja & Hess (1973)
Grab your body glitter and avoid the shadow of the cross because we’re talking Bill Gunn’s Ganja & Hess (1973) for its 50th anniversary! Along for the ride is Brother Ghoulish himself, Ryan Kinney, who brings keen insight into the intersection between colonialism, vampirism and religion.
Plus: celebrating Marlene Clark’s iconic performance, the film’s visualization of Black bodies, debating the villainy of the titular characters, Gunn’s status as a Black gay filmmaker in the 70s, and Trace’s disgust over brushing your teeth in the bath.
Cross out Ganja & Hess!
Coming up on Wednesday: We’re celebrating Alien Day with a look at the costly, philosophical, and frequently maddening Alien prequel, Prometheus (2012).
P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for more than 238 hours of additional content! This month, we’ve got episodes on make-or-break horror movie endings, the latest Children of the Corn film, season 1 of Amazon Prime’s Swarm, and Renfield. Our audio commentary for the month will be on Rob Zombie’s House of 1000 Corpses.
Maybe you haven’t thought about your good friend Sweeney Todd in a while, or maybe you have. The 2007 movie is a bit of a memory, though a fond one – it has a healthy 86% on Rotten Tomatoes, for what it’s worth. But 2023’s Broadway revival starring Josh Groban, who your mom thinks is “so talented” (she’s right!), was enough of a hit that its run was extended.
It appears we’re in a bit of a Sweeneyssaince.
For the uninitiated, Sweeney Todd is the story of a barber who kills his customers and disposes of the bodies by passing them off to pie shop owner Mrs. Lovett, who uses them as a special ingredient. But there’s more below the trap door.
Sweeney Todd isn’t just a late 70s musical that turned into a movie; it started as a penny dreadful called The String of Pearls: A Domestic Romance (author unknown), told week-to-week in the 1840s. Penny dreadfuls were essentially fiction zines featuring serialized stories that were usually horror-based and cost a penny, leading to the very literal nickname.
The String of Pearls differs from the more well-known Sweeney Todd plot in that it follows the investigation of a missing persons case that leads to the reveal of Sweeney and Mrs. Lovett’s arrangement, as opposed to the more modern iteration which treats audiences to the duo hatching their homicidal plan and then giving the worst haircuts ever. What a delightfully wild reveal that must have been if you were a reader in Victorian London after weeks of wondering what had become of the missing sailor carrying a string of pearls to deliver to a lovely girl.
Kristen and Will discuss the history and future of Sweeney Todd and works inspired by it this week on Guide to the Unknown. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts to get a new episode every Friday.
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