Horror Double Feature: Devils of Darkness & Ganja & Hess

In today’s Shocktober Double Feature, we will encounter Satanic worship, British beatniks, blood addiction, and The Night of the Living Dead’s Duane Jones! It’s Devils of Darkness and Ganja & Hess!

DEVILS OF DARKNESS (1965)

Despite being a longtime fan of the British horror film, it was only recently that I learned of the existence of 1965’s Devils of Darkness, and now that I have seen it, I know why. This product of Pinewood Studios is a fairly undistinguished effort that just barely manages to entertain and is never even remotely chilling. In it, William Sylvester (who psychotronic-film fans will recall from such genre favorites as Gorgo, The Devil Doll and 2001: A Space Odyssey) runs afoul of a French vampire called Count Sinistre (born in 1588) and his immortal gypsy bride, Tania, while on holiday in Brittany. The filmmakers apparently felt that a vampire wasn’t enough for this picture, so threw in a pack of devil worshippers as well, plus some voodoo trimming. Unfortunately, the resultant stew never quite comes together, and the fact that Hubert Noel as the Count is hardly a threatening presence only compounds the problem. A subplot that has him endeavoring to recover a missing talisman simply peters out by the film’s end, and the picture’s resolution is waaay too rushed and abrupt, I feel. On the plus side, Sylvester is as sturdy and dependable as ever, and the film’s production values are fairly high. The picture contains a couple of strange British beatnik party sequences showcasing some subtly suggested marijuana consumption and lesbianism, and an energetic and atmospheric gypsy camp intro opens the film promisingly. Ultimately, however, Devils of Darkness, as directed by Lance Comfort, turns out to be a rather tame, blah picture; not bad, but certainly nothing great. If you’ve seen all the horror films put out by Hammer and Amicus Studios, do by all means give it a try. This picture really is for British horror film completists only.

GANJA & HESS (1973)

To be perfectly honest, the first time I watched Bill Gunn’s 1973 art-house horror movie, Ganja & Hess, it left me quite cold and even managed to put me to sleep. I felt that the film was unbearably slow moving, featured unsympathetic characters, suffered from lackadaisical direction and mumbled line readings, contained numerous scenes that petered out listlessly and meaninglessly, and concluded with an excruciatingly protracted gospel finale. During a repeat viewing, however, to ascertain whether this film, which I’d loooong wanted to see, was really that bad – and with not so much lowered as altered expectations – I realized that the picture, despite its previously mentioned faults, does contain many fine qualities. In it, we meet Dr. Hess Green, an anthropologist who is stabbed by his unbalanced assistant with a knife from the fabled land of Myrthia and becomes a blood addict (the “v” word is never mentioned in this film), just as likely to sip his beverage of choice from a cut-glass decanter as to lap it up from a dirty floor. He takes up with the wife of his attacker, a beautiful though obnoxious woman named Ganja Meda, in a very unusual romance indeed. Duane Jones, the hero of 1968’s seminal Night of the Living Dead, is excellent and charismatic here as the bearded Dr. Green, and Marlene Clark does well in her difficult role. The film makes great use of an African chant that weaves through Hess’ consciousness when he is, uh, thirsty, and its lethargic pace struck me, on a second viewing, as not so much glacial as dreamlike. This is a picture that almost demands and requires a second look to appreciate all its subtleties and various symbolic allusions. Put aside your expectations of fangs and capes and bats and you may find yourself really getting immersed in Hess Green’s nightmare. This picture turns out to be not nearly as anemic as I initially thought!

COMING ATTRACTIONS: An adult man who lives in a crib! The always-wonderful Marianna Hill! Zombies! A haunted farmhouse! It’s The Baby and The Abandoned, in the Shocktober Double Feature #19…