Da Sweet Blood of Jesus (2014)

Good movie but grossly overrated

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

I have loved most of the Spike Lee joints I have seen, but this time I felt much disappointed with the remake of "Ganja & Hess". To start with I still do not fathom the cult following of the original: it is true that for its time it was an innovative approach to cinema dealing with paranormal activity, and quite different from most African-American motion pictures of the 1970s, but at the same time I found its central premise a bit pompous and wordy, and many viewers' reactions a bit exaggerated. The so admired "slickness" of both versions is too ornate for me, and quite distracting: it makes the plot look sillier than it is for all its pretension that we are witnessing an "awesome" psychological drama. I have to admit though that Bill Gunn had more control over his own material than Lee: the remake is amazingly disjointed and even longer than the original, with extensive stretches of "music videos" that could have been cut without affecting the drama. As a matter of fact Lee's film contains good elements that do no blend, as Bruce Hornsby's score and varied songs so omnipresent and badly dosed that the soundtrack becomes annoying, no matter how good the composition or the tune are. Then take the beautiful opening credits sequence or the great church scene featuring Valerie Simpson singing and playing the piano, mix them with the obligatory lesbian scene, the dispensable garden cocktail for white scholars, the unexplained trips to town (Hess must certainly be a hot specialist on the Ashanti culture, but we see little of that), the trivial little procession after the wedding... and you get something very bloody but hardly sweet. Your "cultural background" will not suffer much if you skip this.

This film has been slaughtered by the critics and IMDb voters, so maybe I'm just feeling the need to play Devil's Advocate - but I don't think so. A remake of Ganja and Hess, this is one of Spike Lee's most cinematic of films, carefully lensed, well scored (albeit with music that reminded me of Love, American Style - maybe that's the point), and intelligently acted. It's the antithesis, in fact, of his previous film, Red Hook Summer, which had its good points but ultimately looked like a student film. I found Da Sweet Blood of Jesus hugely entertaining and thoroughly engaging - and c'mon, how can you dislike a film dedicated to the memory of Christopher Lee, or one so clearly in debt to the works of Jean Rollin?

This is one of those movies that after watching it (and while watching it for that matter) you can't help shaking your head and asking, what the heck was that? Of all the projects Spike Lee could have invested his talents on, he chose to remake an obscure blaxspoitation film in such a way that it doesn't transcend the material but just remains a modern blaxspoitation film with a rap soundtrack and all. As a horror movie it fails. Not scary. As an art-house film in fails. The acting is horrible, the soundtrack is as annoying as fingernails across a chalkboard, and the story is practically non-existent. It's not particularly gruesome. The dialogue is so poorly written it's nearly comical but not in a good way. It's just a total mess. There's no point to it. There's no point in watching it and there certainly wasn't any point in making it. I thought Spike Lee lost his mind when he remade Oldboy, but this one just takes the cake. I watched the entire thing because I'm a movie buff and just wanted to be able to say that I watched it, but honestly, it was a complete waste of my time.

A remake of a Blaxpolation film called Ganja & Hess, Dr. Green is a expert on African artifacts who after a botched murder, suicide begins a strange addiction to blood that makes him indestructible.A very strange low key indi vampire (sort of) picture. Reminds me of last years, Only Lovers Left Alive by Jim Jarmusch, but Mr. Lee is asking me to have a far more opened mind than Mr. Jarmush did. The premise of the movie is about an African tribe who drank blood like it was alcohol or drugs, and a doctor who begins to practice this particular custom, feeling that it's society that made this addiction stranger than all others. I did enjoy the premise of not using the Eastern European origins of what is a vampire, at the same time, Spike use this as a comp out for when people come up to him and say "your vampire film really sucks"(bad pun cause no biting went on in the movie).For the most part, I got the Impression that the film is more about addiction and how it can drive you and the people around you. I saw a movie no different than Requiem for a Dream, but the drug of choice was blood.It definitely had the feel of a Spike Lee film all over it. His signature style was all over This cheap independent production and reminded me of his recent film, Red Hook Summer and his first film She's Gotta have it. The Jazz composed score really help push the story along too. So this is what that Kickstarter campaign was all about, huh? Overall, it showed that Spike still has a foot inside true independent cinema, and it was something truly different an unexpected from the maker of Do the Right Thing. I think it has the makings of a Midnight Movie cult following. Way better than Old Boy