Savage Cinema presents…
Martin (Romero ’77) + Ganja & Hess (Gunn ’73)
Tuesday 24th July, Roxy Bar & Screen
New monthly night launches at Roxy Bar & Screen.
Savage Cinema is a new collective based in London celebrating some of the most breathtaking examples of transgressive, alternative cinema. We begin with a double-bill of two of the most celebrated American independent genre films of the 1970s: George A. Romero’s gritty, self-reflexive yet haunting classic MARTIN (1977), the director’s favourite of his own films; and the UK premiere of the director’s cut of Bill Gunn’s spellbinding, formerly ‘lost’ blaxploitation / avant-garde masterpiece GANJA & HESS (1973).
“More than just a midnight-movie classic, MARTIN is inventive, haunting and bitingly smart… see Romero at the top of his terror game.” – Film4
“GANJA & HESS is an underground classic… the most complicated, intriguing, subtle, sophisticated, and passionate Black film of the Seventies.” – James Monaco, American Film Now
Both films, shot on grainy 16mm with tiny budgets, could nominally be termed ‘vampire’ films, but are far more ambitious and elusive than such a label suggests. MARTIN’s eponymous young protagonist, banished to a dilapidated Philadelphia mining town in the care of a superstitious family member, uses razorblades in place of fangs and, it is suggested, may not even be a vampire at all. GANJA & HESS uses its titular upper-class New York blood-drinkers to represent tensions surrounding identity within contemporary African-American culture.
Lest this seem all too heady, both films also possess buckets of style to boot, ranging from off-kilter editing, striking photography, and two of the most radical, underrated music scores ever heard in genre cinema. The connections don’t end there: GANJA & HESS features one of the few rare lead performances by Duane Jones, who was of course also the star of George Romero’s groundbreaking debut, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD.
MORE INFO & TICKETS:
£7 on the door or in advance here
Savage Cinema – facebook
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