I know I don’t normally talk about documentaries on here, but I watched this really cool vampire documentary sponsored by PBS on dvd this week and wanted to share it with you. Secrets of the Dead is a documentary series that started airing on PBS in 2000. There are different episodes with different themes, but the one I watch was called Vampire Legend.

The series is really sporadic and even though I am a fan of PBS I never remember seeing it air. That doesn’t mean anything though, I’m frequently just super behind on things. Vampire Legend originally aired in October of 2015, I’m guessing to fit into a Halloween theme. I used to read a lot of supernatural themed history stuff, I’ve even presented research on werewolves and witches. If you want to hear more about those topics let me know because the stuff I found out was really interesting, at least to me.

Vampire Legend starts by examining burial rituals throughout Europe that all seem to reflect a fear of the dead rising. Many of the remains, they were all just skeletal because it had been a very long time since they had been buried, had their heads removed, their legs damaged, and in some cases they had stakes through where there hearts would have been. Multiple archaeologists and historians weighed in on the burials and why the people in these locations might have taken it upon themselves to mutilate their dead loved ones.

Besides that there was a modern case, from 2005, that occurred in Romania that was brought up. Apparently a small town believed that a young woman was being fed on by her deceased uncle who had risen from the grave as a vampire. Men from and connected to the family dug up the uncle and took measures to stop him from feeding off of his niece. Vampire Legend was actually the first place to have an interview with one of the men involved in the ritual. It was really interesting to see that the belief in actual vampires still persists in some parts of the world. You even get to hear one of Bram Stoker’s relatives talk about the creation of Dracula and how he led to the evolution of vampire culture.

If you are interested in vampires or in supernatural pop culture than this is definitely a documentary you should be on the lookout for. Are there any other documentaries you think I should check out? Comment below or tweet at us, @thenerdygirlexp. You can also tweet at me, @kleffnotes, and find me on my blog, kleffnotes.wordpress.com, and on my kleffnotes YouTube channel.