Dramatically chopped up and released under a handful of exploitation titles that sold a very different film — Blood Couple, Black Vampire, Vampires of Harlem — Bill Gunn’s 1973 masterpiece Ganja and Hess was long misunderstood. Now, this arthouse vampire film has been restored to its original run time to beguile a new generation. One of only two starring roles from lead actor Duane Jones (the other, of course, was Night of the Living Dead), the film revolves around an ancient African ceremonial dagger that curses an anthropologist (Jones) with eternal life. 

Co-starring Gunn as the suicidal researcher who kicks off the film’s plot and Marlene Clark as the grieving widow who falls for Jones’ erudite vampire, Ganja and Hess is a dreamy, provocative, and metaphorically rich Black horror classic.