Dracula: The True Story
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Dracula: The True Story

1997, History  -   23 Comments
6.27
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Ratings: 6.27/10 from 62 users.

Dracula: The True StoryThe world's most famous vampire has been undead for over a century. The famous novel Dracula, written by Irish author Bram Stoker, was a mixture of reality, superstition, fearful fantasies and history.

Stoker's role model for the novel was an actual Romanian Prince born in the 15th century: Vlad Tepes or Vlad the Impaler, so named because of his favorite method of executing his enemies - the horrific medieval torture known as impaling. And so Vlad the Impaler and the Transylvania vampire Count Dracula, became forevermore, one and the same.

The image of the vampire has been seen in novels, films, plays, paintings, and even a new musical, Dance of Vampires, directed by Roman Polanski. This documentary travels to the heart of Transylvania, in today's Romania, to uncover the historical truths behind the legend of Dracula. Today, vampire tourism in Romania is booming.

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kirstin
kirstin
7 years ago

VLAD.
ma new hero

gaboora
gaboora
10 years ago

Well researched documentary. It seems that there might have been more of it than shown here.

Adnana Dason
Adnana Dason
11 years ago

Unfortunately, even if Vlad Tepes- Dracula is a very popular
character in the world, many people really do not really know his true story! There are a lot of books, articles, web sites, etc, about Prince Vlad, but weak of them treat his deeds according to the historical truth; or worse, present them distorted! When he became ruler of Walachia in
the spring of 1456, he found the country in a very bad situation. But his
administrative decisions are less known today as everybody writes only about the impalement or cruelty!

I recently read a very interesting historical documentary book to present the true story of Vlad Dracula as the ruler of Walachia in XV century!

Maya Vala Meritay
Maya Vala Meritay
11 years ago

I do not understand why again and again money is wasted for such a waste! This is no documentary, this is a summary of all negative things which belong to imagination but not into history. It's like having a copy of a copy of a copy of lies since centuries, nothing else.
I would be really happy about a history-documentation abot Prince Vlad showing the real Documents written by prince Vlad, showing the real places, where he lived and doesn´t tell Stoker Vampire-Novel and ITS background. These are two pairs of shoes. It is a shame that the character assassination campaign of King Matthias Corvinus against Prince Vlad apparently worked so well that one the old pamphlets, which the king ordered, are still believed to be historical facts!
This movie is really a waste of material. I am now going to get back the wasted 37 minutes of my life!

fk_censors
fk_censors
11 years ago

This was one of the worst documentaries I have ever seen. The historical and ethnological references have so many mistakes and omissions and on top of that the narrative is not cohesive and does not tell a clear story. (For example, there was no notion of Romania in the 1400s. Much of his bloodthirsty image came from propaganda made by his political enemies during the time when block printing became widespread and information could be disseminated like never before. Much like Bush is depicted in some sensationalist press as a child killer or Obama as a foreigner with a mission to destroy the country - lots of hyperbole is used now, and we have a semi-literate. One could imagine the force of propaganda when almost everyone was illiterate. Dracula was not really a child prisoner in Istanbul in the traditional sense - he was a part of the Sultan's court as a hostage, in that it forced his father to not betray his oath to pay the tax to the Sultan; it was more like a boarding school to which he was forced to go for political reasons. There is no vampire or undead myth in Romanian folklore, and unlikely in Hungarian folklore either. There is however, something similar in Slavic mythology and Albanian mythology. Impalement is an Asiatic - most likely Turkic - method of torture and execution, not related to the wheel torture as implied in the documentary. He was reviled because he kind of went against feudal order - he used the same punishment for commoners and noblemen. And so many more misconceptions or omissions of things which would paint a more clear picture of the historical Dracula.) They find one crazy guy who hears voices and is basically the only Romanian who believes in vampires and they use him as a source (the poor guy is not even entertaining). Maybe the pathological info is better - definitely more clearly presented - but again judging from the mistakes in the other parts of the documentary, I am skeptical of believing these things as well...

Raven Morrigan
Raven Morrigan
11 years ago

I do not see why they are portarying the whole idea of tourism in a bad way...we have vampire chicks, Ireland has leprechauns running around the place:)....its tourism. As for Elisabeta, she was not Transilvanian, she was Hungarian of origin. I am born in the town that prides with its castle- the Hunyad Castle, Vlad is always mentioned but no vampire temptresses around that place:)

Lycheborne
Lycheborne
11 years ago

was shocked this wasnt on history chan

Alexandru Matei
Alexandru Matei
11 years ago

There is no story about Dracula - Dracula was Vlad Tepes's nickname, because he used to kill the turkish in sadistic ways.

misterwong
misterwong
11 years ago

This doc is incomplete by a long shot

Irishkev
Irishkev
11 years ago

Vampires are terrified of politicians .

Irishkev
Irishkev
11 years ago

Btw the best Vampire movie is Nosferatu , roll a fat one and sit back alone in the dark , wuhoohoohooo!!!

dewflirt
dewflirt
11 years ago

Soothing voice. Maybe with a low fire, rain rattling the windows and my back to the door I might think differently ;)

alans
alans
11 years ago

Is this available on videocassette?

jonathon wisnoski
jonathon wisnoski
11 years ago

Strangely there are other historical figures that fit the Dracula mold. He was a horrifying guy, but had no particular vampiric characteristics. Now take Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed (aka The Blood Countess), she was very vampiric in style.