The 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 captivating new documentary travels to the heart of Transsylvania, in today's Romania, to uncover the historical truths behind the legend of Dracula. Today, vampire tourism in Romania is booming. A self-described vampire hunter, Paul Daian, believes that vampires lurk in the streets of today's Bucharest and can adopt various forms. A Viennese dermatologist, Christian Honigsmann, discusses his theory that porphyria, a widespread genetic illness in Transsylvania in those days, was behind many vampire superstitions, especially the idea of their fear of sunlight. And Princess Brianna Caradja, a descendant of Vlad Tepes' talks about her famous ancestor.