Before anyone decides to write off Spike Lee's B-movie remake Da Sweet Blood of Jesus because of its Kickstarter-backed origins, just know that the budget isn't the problem. The film received plenty of supporters and a flow of cash isn't the issue, although chances are it turned out exactly how Lee wanted it to. But therein lies the problem, because Da Sweet Blood of Jesus continues Lee's string of creatively bankrupt efforts, and at this point it's becoming tougher to hope he'll ever emerge out of this rut.
Whatever one thinks of Lee's recent projects, his early work marked him as a man of unique vision and skill; he's a director who can skate effortlessly between intelligent urban drama and mainstream genre flicks. So it's been depressing to see him fail so spectacularly at both lately. Red Hook Summer is arguably the worst thing he's ever done, and it's set firmly in the masterfully created Brooklyn cinema-verse of Do the Right Thing. Lee's Oldboy remake, while not an utter disaster, is hardly a shining example of his talent. He's digging out of a hole immediately with Da Sweet Blood of Jesus, as it's a "reinterpretation" of a fairly awful 1973 Blaxploitation film, Ganja & Hess, although little has been changed except for the setting. Now taking place mostly in lovely Martha's Vineyard, there are elements of it that bleed over into Lee's Brooklyn universe. So yeah, we get a scene in the Heaven Baptist Church seen in Red Hook Summer. The decision to connect Lee's best work with this stillborn "vampire" movie may be the worst idea he's ever had.
Oh, but there aren't any actual vampires in Da Sweet Blood of Jesus. Can't emphasize that enough, although the characters have the same thirsts as vampires and the themes they must contend with are largely the same. Dr. Hess Greene (Stephon Tyrone Williams) is a reclusive and somewhat abnormal archaeologist studying the ways of the Ashanti, an African tribe who used to drink blood to attain mystical power. When a depressed and drunken colleague stabs him with an ancient Ashanti dagger, the weapon changes Hess into an immortal being in constant need of blood to survive. After his colleague kills himself, Hess calmly kneels down and begins slurping the blood like a cat with a bowl of milk. He proceeds to coldly pursue blood in various ways, including an odd encounter with a prostitute played by Snoop from HBO's The Wire. Let's just say her husky man-voice isn't much of a turn on and it's a wonder why she was cast in such a role.
If there's an over-arching issue with Da Sweet Blood of Jesus it's that it
doesn't really seem to have any forward momentum. The plot meanders into gear
when the widow of the man who stabbed Hess, a snooty rich woman named Ganga
(Zaraah Abrahams), arrives at Hess' palatial digs looking for her husband. The
two quickly become a couple, then after she is unwillingly transformed they
share in their mutual lust for blood, but that's about all they do. Lee seems
mildly interested in exploring religious themes unique to the African-American
experience, filtered through some kind of odd monster movie, but never fully
commits to anything in particular. That includes the tone which shifts wildly
from campy exploitation to heavy dramatics; which is fine if there's a reason
for the choices he makes. Instead it's impossible to fathom why the movie opens
with a random five-minute dance number...it's hard to figure why Rami Malek,
who plays Hess' manservant, seems to have stumbled in from some different
comedy movie...and what's with the rousing church sequences? Lee may be looking
to equate the thirst for blood with a spiritual chasm needing to be filled, but
his approach is clumsier than we're accustomed to from him. Then again, Red
Hook Summer suffered the same problem so maybe this is just who Lee is at
this point.Somewhere along the way Lee lost his touch stylistically, and now his films resemble the work of a Lee impersonator. Having recently been to Sundance and seen the Lee-produced movie, Cronies, which is directed by a guy emulating Lee to a painful degree, it's sad to see this happen. It's not that Lee has no artistic vision; it's that he has no clear one. A prime example is in the R&B-infused score by Bruce Hornsby which is dropped everywhere it doesn't belong. Regardless of the mood Lee is trying to set, Hornsby's jazzy beats are hammered over top of it and none of it makes sense. Add some flat, chemistry-free performances by Abrahams and Williams, and it's easy to see why there's not a single drop of life in Da Sweet Blood of Jesus. It's clear Lee has some inexplicable love for the source material but he doesn't give us any reason to feel the same way, and certainly doesn't have anything new to say about it.
Rating: 1.5 out of 5
