So do myself. I say, look the other way when it come by you. Up until the 1970s, American

and Western horror had been almost exclusively white. In 1968, Night of the Living Dead became

a landmark movie for having a black man in the lead role. Until this point, black people

had been relegated to supporting roles or would be othered in some way or another.

But in 1972, American International Pictures, who specialised in low-budget exploitation

cinema produced a film directed by a black filmmaker, William Crane, and starring a prestigious

black stage actor, William Marshall. The film was black-yellow.

Black-yellow took many of the classic vampire and Dracula tropes, but rooted it in modern

black culture. Black-yellow became known as the first black horror film. It was a huge

hit and helped launch a movement that became known throughout the 1970s as black exploitation.

While often black exploitation movies were cheap productions made to be churned out quickly

to maximise profit, some gave black directors the chance to make artistic, thought-provoking

art films that could be distributed to wider audiences.

In 1973, Bill Gunn made his vampire film, Ganger and Hesse, which felt less like a traditional

horror film and instead more like an experimental and intensely personal reflection on race,

class and gender. Unlike black-yellow, Ganger and Hesse didn't impress American audiences

of the time. It was almost too bold, too ahead of its time, and too black for white audiences.

Nowadays, Ganger and Hesse is considered one of the great vampire films of the 1970s and

a seminal text in the history of black horror cinema.

Join me as we continue exploring the evolution of the vampire and we discuss black-yellow and

Ganger and Hesse.

Welcome back to the evolution of horror. My name is Mike Munster, and as ever, I am your

...