The Blood of Jesus Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		2.5
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

The Blood of Jesus Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 29, 2025

If there were ever a Blu-ray that screamed for some kind of scholarly commentary or at least some fulsome liner notes, The Blood of Jesus would certainly qualify. Neither the vintage key art (which I suspect was deliberately designed that way) nor the very minimal back cover verbiage on this release actually disclose that this was a so-called "race film", a micro budgeted effort from a company I have a hunch very few have heard of, Sack Amusement Enterprises. Alfred N. Sack and his brother Lester were actually Jewish, but they partnered with some notable black show business folks for decades, resulting in either outright producing or at least distributing a number of films made with black casts and crews and obviously geared toward that demographic. One of their frequent collaborators was Spencer Williams (Jr., though his billing in this film omits the suffix), who had a long if largely unremembered film career, but who also had something approaching 15 minutes of fame when he co-starred in the short lived television version of Amos 'n' Andy.

A group of black folks, young and old, follow their minister, well, down by the riverside for some "location baptizing". Among the soon to be faithful is newly wed Martha Ann Jackson (Cathryn Caviness, bearing a rather striking resemblance to the gorgeous Marpessa Dawn of Black Orpheus). The other women (all of whom call each other "Sister") are cheekily gossiping about Sister Jackson's new husband, an apparently scheming (and atheistic) guy named Razz (Spencer Williams). The (literal?) upshot of these opening introductions is that when Martha returns home to find Razz with someone else's hogs Razz has shot for dinner, she scolds him, but then his gun falls to the floor, discharging and shooting Martha. The believers congregate around her bedside to pray, while she "travels" to a kind of purgatory where she's tempted by both Satan (James B. Jones) and his underling Judas Green (Frank H. McClennan). Suffice it to say, an angel of mercy (Rogenia Goldthwaite) is on hand (wing?) to aid Martha, and unsurprisingly things end well, with Razz coming to his senses and becoming a believer himself.

The Blood of Jesus Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Blood of Jesus is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Film Masters' Archive Collection imprint with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.33:1. Per the Film Masters Archive Collection standard operating procedure, this is a burnt MOD disc on a BD-R. Unsurprisingly, Film Masters doesn't provide any background on the source for this transfer. The film has been in the public domain for some time, and I suspect this is a poorly curated element that may have had some kind of videotape workflow at some point. There are varying levels of quality throughout the presentation in virtually all of the areas we typically address, including clarity, grain structure, damage and the like. The film has a fairly large amount of optical effects, all done on a shoestring budget, and some of those can look pretty shoddy (see screenshot 6). There's also one really curious looking moment documented in screenshot 9 where something bad happened (I suspect during the transfer process).

The Blood of Jesus Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Blood of Jesus features DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono. The front cover lists "The Heavenly Choir" as among the cast members, while the actual cast list mentions an actual minister and what one presumes is his congregational choir, who do perform a number of great spirituals on the soundtrack. While it's obvious that at least some scenes featuring the choir are actually post looped (the singers' lip movements are nowhere near what's being sung), a lot of the singing seems to have been captured "live". While fidelity is certainly not at contemporary standards, there is surprisingly little actual damage on the track. Yes, things are boxy and somewhat hollow sounding, but on the whole there's nothing overly problematic. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly. Optional English subtitles (littered with sometimes hilarious quasi-mondegreens or at least misspellings) are available.

The Blood of Jesus Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Film historians in general and those interested in "race films" will find The Blood of Jesus to be an absolutely fascinating historical curio. Unfortunately technical merits are improvable and this BD-R boasts no supplementary material, for anyone who may be considering making a purchase.