I came to this curious 1975 film through the late Milford Graves, who is very briefly glimpsed as part of the percussion ensemble. Not really a horror movie, though it was marketed as such, stars Marlene Clark of Ganja and Hess fame, and concerns spirit possession and the dead. Written by playwright Paul Carter Harrison--who also scripted 'Youngbood' (1978) and an un-produced biopic of Sam Cooke--and shot in Friendsville, Tennessee, it concerns the clash of Yoruba religion and Christianity, centring around the idea of sacrifice. (Graves, who served as African percussion consultant on the film, illustrates the Yoruba side, juxtaposed with the Howard Roberts Choir's spirituals--Roberts scored the film). Like 'Ganja and Hess'--on which Harrison explicitly modelled the film--it doesn't really fit any of the generic categories placed on Black cinema of the time--horror, Blaxploitation, drama--though it perhaps includes elements of all of these. And while it lacks the sheer surreal, a-narrative strangeness of Ganja--the pacing is more sedate and telegraphed--it's certainly distinctive.
Nicholas Foster has an interesting article on its production history and evasion of categories for black film at Black Camera which recounts more details. From Foster, we learn that it was a coproduction between the Ronald Hobbs Literary Agency, who represented Amiri Baraka, Larry Neal and other Black Arts Movement literary figures, and distribution company Bryanston Pictures who'd also put out 'Andy Warhol's Dracula', Andy Warhol's Frankenstein', and 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' and later, 'Deep Throat' (obscenity charges surrounding the latter leading to the company's collapse), with Hobbs apparently inviting the likes of Baraka, Neal and Adrienne Kennedy to evaluate the film at screenings. For all the sensationalist aspects suggested by Bryanston's involvement, 'Lord Shango' was consciously seeking *not* to be a Blaxploitation film--"the days of Blaxploitation are over" ran a newspaper report on its production. If Gunn's 'Ganja and Hess' is very much an auteur film--starring role, with the distinctive editing, the removal of exposition and backstory for the distinctive dream-like atmosphere--the director here, Ray Marsh, appears to have minimal input. He made a couple of shlock films and is never even mentioned in Harrison's reminiscence at Black Camera. As a result, the film lacks the visual distinctiveness of Gunn's film, with its slow-motion, temporal leaps, and slow zooms: camera angles are generally static medium shots, cutting between incidents to create tension--amplified by contrasts of drumming and singing--that are obvious and hackneyed. The opening scene, in which church-goers either deliberately or accidentally drown a Yoruba devotee who interrupts a Baptism, should be resonant and tense: instead it's near-plodding, desperately crying out either for longer, more patient atmosphere-building or some severe editing. At times-particularly in Clark's performance-we get glimpses of a better film, and it's worth watching for those-and for the chance to see Milford Graves in his motion picture debut!
Nicholas Foster has an interesting article on its production history and evasion of categories for black film at Black Camera which recounts more details. From Foster, we learn that it was a coproduction between the Ronald Hobbs Literary Agency, who represented Amiri Baraka, Larry Neal and other Black Arts Movement literary figures, and distribution company Bryanston Pictures who'd also put out 'Andy Warhol's Dracula', Andy Warhol's Frankenstein', and 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' and later, 'Deep Throat' (obscenity charges surrounding the latter leading to the company's collapse), with Hobbs apparently inviting the likes of Baraka, Neal and Adrienne Kennedy to evaluate the film at screenings. For all the sensationalist aspects suggested by Bryanston's involvement, 'Lord Shango' was consciously seeking *not* to be a Blaxploitation film--"the days of Blaxploitation are over" ran a newspaper report on its production. If Gunn's 'Ganja and Hess' is very much an auteur film--starring role, with the distinctive editing, the removal of exposition and backstory for the distinctive dream-like atmosphere--the director here, Ray Marsh, appears to have minimal input. He made a couple of shlock films and is never even mentioned in Harrison's reminiscence at Black Camera. As a result, the film lacks the visual distinctiveness of Gunn's film, with its slow-motion, temporal leaps, and slow zooms: camera angles are generally static medium shots, cutting between incidents to create tension--amplified by contrasts of drumming and singing--that are obvious and hackneyed. The opening scene, in which church-goers either deliberately or accidentally drown a Yoruba devotee who interrupts a Baptism, should be resonant and tense: instead it's near-plodding, desperately crying out either for longer, more patient atmosphere-building or some severe editing. At times-particularly in Clark's performance-we get glimpses of a better film, and it's worth watching for those-and for the chance to see Milford Graves in his motion picture debut!