So…this one’s not for everybody.

The newest official Spike Lee Joint, ‘Da Sweet Blood of Jesus’ is actually a remake of ‘Ganja and Hess’, a cult classic blaxploitation flick by Bill Gunn (who gets a writing credit here).  Much like the original, this film takes the ‘vampire’ character and uses it as a parable for a story about the black experience in America.

Make no mistake though, this is a Spike Lee film.  Plenty of sex, plenty of violence. The dolly shot, New York City.  This is the film Spike funded through Kickstarter, which in retrospect is the biggest hint: don’t look for anything traditional Hollywood here (even by Spike’s terms).  This one is more in the vein of Bamboozled, Girl 6, and the like.  Especially in the current moment where we have a few ‘black films’ made by black directors that are being celebrated (justifiably) by the system, it’s interesting to watch a film like this, which is on the other end in my opinion of ‘black cinema’.

If you’re a Spike fanboy, you need to check this one out.