“The reincarnation of a man who came back from the dead to possess a man’s soul, make love to his woman, and get the vengeance he craved!” Re-issued as part of MGM’s low-priced Soul Classics series, this 70s oddity is a somewhat slow-paced blaxpolitation/supernatural thriller. Not a yukfest like BLACULA, this is a deceptively sober and dramatic story.
Mellow pipe-smoking law student/cab driver Ike (Glynn Turman from COOLEY HIGH) gets hypnotized in a nightclub and somehow gets possessed by the spirit of a black 30s revenge-minded gangster JD Walker. It seems JD was wrongly killed and wants payback on a certain con turned preacher (Lou Gossett Jr. in an early role.) JD’s sister was cheating on Gossett with his brother Theotis, who killed her and got JD blamed for it and shot to death by Gossett’s character. None of the characters look anywhere old enough to have even been babies in the 30s, but that’s the movies for ya!
JD starts to exert his influence as Turman starts to act uppity and put his woman in her place. His friend is impressed and tells him that with women, “You gotta go into your nigga act once in a while.” He drives his cab crazily, smashing an old white lady against the side window and throwing her out of his cab! The doctor tells him to relax and smoke some weed. 
He finds the church of his old buddy and ingratiates himself to Gossett and bangs Gossett’s flirty daughter, which brings up an interesting point. If you die and possess someone’s body, is it still incest if you fuck your own niece? Because she is indeed his sister’s child, plucked from her dying womb. But JD’s obviously not bothered by ethical issues.
Ike starts dressing like a 30s gangster, and gets his hair processed. “Don’t you like yo’ daddy’s conk?” he asks his girlfriend before he beats and rapes her under JD’s influence. As his behavior gets more erratic, Theotis’ henchmen tell him, “The boss is right. You one crazy nigga.” JD goes out and picks up some poon tang at the nightclub, then takes a razor to the bitch’s man when he returns home early and takes her car! It all comes to a head, and baby, JD does get his revenge.
Director Arthur Marks was also responsible for Pam Grier vehicles BUCKTOWN and FRIDAY FOSTER. Turman (a year or so later married to Aretha Franklin) is fun to watch as JD. Nice use of sound in the film. And the 70s New Orleans French Quarter location adds a nice touch to the voodoo stew.
There is a rumor that Prince was involved in the film, probably because the soundtrack is by a Robert Prince. But he would have been about 17, and this is shot in New Orleans, not Minneapolis, and the music sounds nothing like his work, so I feel pretty safe dispelling that rumor.
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