Vlad The Impaler
This documentary examines the bloody career of Vlad the Impaler, the 15th-century prince of Wallachia who took no prisoners in his resistance to the spread of the Ottoman Empire. Known as Dracula, he learned the arts of war as a hostage of the Turks, but asserted his independence by working his own disloyal nobles to death and repelling a Turkish invasion by filling the battlefield with 23,000 impaled corpses.
When he came to power, Vlad immediately had all the assembled nobles arrested. The older boyars and their families were immediately impaled. The younger and healthier nobles and their families were marched north from Târgovi?te to the ruins of Poienari Castle in the mountains above the Arge? River.
Vlad was determined to rebuild this ancient fortress as his own stronghold and refuge. The enslaved boyars and their families were forced to labor for months, rebuilding the old castle with materials from another nearby ruin. According to tradition, they labored until the clothes fell off their bodies and then were forced to continue working naked. Very few of the old gentry survived the ordeal of building Vlad’s castle. This documentary is a must for those that like to separate fact from myth.
Watch the full documentary now
ok…i live in romania,in transilvania actually and i must state that this documentary made Vlad Dracula look all bad…of course he made some bad things but what it is said in this documentary is exagerated,in romania he is considered a national hero,and he has a lot of statues and his picture even in churches… he was the one who kept the turks out of the rest of europe.
You are right !
i wonder how can you tell this “is a must for those that like to separate fact from myth” when you start with two old guys from nowhere near Romania, and all they told you is that he inspired a horror story that was real, and that he did have power of life and death over his subjects…didn’t all kings had that power in medeival times, or excuse our people for not having the “prima nocte” rule like you did in your country.he was just one cruel ruler, but with the ones who were criminals.the legend says that you could leave in the middle of the road a bag with gold and no one would think about taking it…so look more for your documentarys..this is NOT a top one.
Can you recommend a better doc please? This doc tells the story most of us are familiar with….
Did he really drink human blood? and if so, was he full of all kind of disseases?
you the romanians have obsession with turks. If the turks hadn’t given you the autonomy you would have been at the mercy of hungarians..Vlad was a real psychopath..
Talking about Vlad the Impaler! He is a hero for romanians cause through his actions he maintained order and relative autonomy of his land, things that modern Romania lack. Regarding his overwhelming cruelty towards all kind of enemies-its nothing unusuall for his time period. A human life worthed a lttle at that time, everywhere in now “civilized europe”. All that can be said about Dracula is that his name became a brand, which sells good and for this any kind of publicty, good or bad, is welcomed!
Ha, Ha, Ha, this is a Hollywood style documentary, plenty with goofs and exaggerations. Maybe next time you’ll ask some pertinent opinions from real historians.
what a load of bull…and this is called “documentary”????
This documentary is rubbish. I live in Bucharest, Romania and this is nothing like what we were thought in school about Vlad Tepes’ history.
I feel like the makers of this documentary must’ve taken Professor McNally’s comments entirely out of context, given the very excellent book that he and Radu Florescu co-wrote (In Search of Dracula; 1994, Houghton Mifflin Co ISBN 0-3095-65783-0). Really, I don’t think this ought to be described as a documentary at all, as it presents such a one-sided view of Vlad Tepes.
vlad was a ruthless murderer!
I’m amused to see how all foreigners say about Vlad being a bad guy, horror for Romanians(WTF? ). You have no idea what you guys are talking about.
@ mehmed-read more, then try to act smart.
@ frank- you don’t say? You don’t live in Romania,you have no single clue about how things actually were here ,so please don’t talk without thinking, thank you.
Worst documentary about Vlad EVER!!
At least they didn’t support that Hollywood Dracula idiocy stuff! (and I’m really surprised !!! Because most of you foreigners consider him as a cruel vampire refusing to see the real Vlad, and not the idiotic myth).
@ alex: yee god bless him..he impaled and tortured people, but this doesn’t concern us right..? we must see the good things. he founded churches and monasteries..rest in peace..
lol, after 100 years peps gona say tony blair ,bush, and etc, they were all bads, some gona say they were heros, 1 person hero may be velion to other. he was good or bad, its depend on u what u want to bleive.
Let’s not forget that the Ottoman Turks impaled POWs too; in fact Vlad Tepes learned that particular practice from them. Besides, as the ruler of a tiny country about to be swallowed up by the Turks, it was in fact absolutely necessary for him to build a badass reputation in order to discourage his enemies.
Personally I think all Europeans should be grateful to Vlad Tepes – even though he was eventually defeated he did his part in protecting Europe from the encroaching Ottoman Empire.
Incidentally, if anyone can recommend a GOOD and objective documentary about Vlad Tepes (in English or with subtitles), please post a link to it here!
Completely plays to preconceptions. This video (and the narrator’s tone) tells nobody anything. Every bully was bullied, it seems. Thanks for telling us this.
Bullsh*%t. And I can’t stand the narrator’s unnecessary hectoring. Does he want to create another monster? or was he not given enough milk as a baby? Who the F knows.
Those “experts” say Vlad bore hatred towards turks, and that Radu was interested in being prince and pampered and leading easy life. Well, if you’re in the enemy’s den, even as a hostage that one wouldn’t wanna sacrifice in vain, you still wanna think how you survive. I don’t like the way the expert presumes Radu was just after easy life… he may have had two choises: death or adaptation, and he might not had been the type who can hide his true feelings. If so, there were only those two alternatives for him.
As for Vlad’s hatred, I can see that he might had just wanted to be safe, and for his people to be safe too, safe from the Ottoman empire. No wonder after all that he had experienced at such a young age. His acts might’ve very well been, at least partly, a way to try to ensure his and his people’s safety. Even if he had to become the devil himself while at it. He is a war hero of the europe as any man of war would had been, keeping a far stronger force than what he had, at bay. He just did it the ugly way.
Vlad is one of my very favorite historical figures.
If I ruled the world, I would totally recreate his system of justice. Death for any infraction…
Of course, that is why I should never rule the world…
“The Historian” is a great novel about Vlad, based on real research…
He is kind of a hero of mine… I’ve loved his story ever since I was a kid…
Is that strange?
And Healer is right, Vlad Tepest was a great tactical genius…
Burning the countryside so that the Turks would have no supplies for their army?
Dark genius… cruel, but effective.
They have an Hallowe’en festival in Romania based around Vlad and a Dracula theme park…
I would love, love, LOVE to go… but I can not fly in planes any more… Doctors’ orders.
Sigh, every year I go onto the websites devoted to the Vlad celebration and experince it vicariously…
He was a great hero for Romania…
Helaer: “He just did it the ugly way.”
I don’t really think there was a “nice” way to go about it in those days. There was no Geneva Convention and no UN; the Ottoman Empire wasn’t going to pull any punches so Vlad couldn’t afford to do so either.
@Consolamentum
Yes, well put and well understood!
What was he supposed ta do? Lay down and let the Turks destroy him and his tiny nation?
Nope.
And, he was trying to save christandom from the invasion of the Islamic empire. And he succeeded, but what was his reward from the church?
Betrayal…
Nice…
It was like King Leonides at the Hot Gates.
I mean, if he hadn’t stood against Xerxes, we would all be worshipping Ba’al right now.
(Well, not ME personally, Ba’al is a very strange and twisted diety that I wouldn’t worship if I even believed in any gods…)
And I am not talking about the movie… that was cute and very clever computer animation, I am talking about the account of Heroditus the father of all historians…
We owe a great debt to these men, Vlad and Leonides, for their courage.
A man’s (and a woman’s!) gotta do whatta man’s (and a woman’s!) gotta do!