Black independent cinema turns to the horror genre with Ganja and Hess by Bill Gunn, actor, playwright and novelist, who made his directorial debut with this unusual film. Dr. Hess Green (Duane Jones), anthropologist and geologist, contracts a mysterious disease after he is stabbed in the back by his assistant (played by Gunn) with an artifact from an ancient civilization. The attack, intended to kill him, makes him immortal and imbues him with an obsession for blood. Being a cultured man, he very rationally turns to a blood bank for his initial supply, but when he bankrupts that he turns to decidedly human victims, including his assistant's wife (Marlene Clark), who becomes his lover and partner in vampirism. Filmed on location in New York--at the Brooklyn Museum, among other spots--Ganja and Hess is a bizarre new take on an ancient genre.