A black anthropologist summering on Martha's Vineyard rescues a visitor from suicide, but becomes fascinated, and quickly possessed, by the ancient artifact brought to him by his friend. Soon, he is drinking blood and romanticizing his mate's estranged wife. Spike Lee's Da Sweet Blood of Jesus is pious, pretentious (daresay prejudiced) dreck, not too mention boring and woefully acted with a dreadful Bruce Horsnby score and a gnawing soundtrack to boot. The film is a remake of a 1973 Bill Gunn blaxploitation Ganja and Hess, unseen by me, so I can't measure up the two, but I can wish that instead of pursuing woeful remakes (while making fans pay his films production cost at that) Spike returns to the well, in which their is considerable substance, and finds another way to remember how to make a quality movie.
1/2 * out of ****
