Vampire Legend

Gr 9 Up—What if the myth of the vampire is not a myth at all? This question is the central premise of this exploration of vampire lore, which, the filmmakers argue, has its origins in the England of a millennium ago, not Eastern Europe as legend suggests. The theory is supported by the archaeological unearthing of "deviant" Anglo-Saxon burial plots of skeletal remains, in which the head was severed and placed between the legs. It gained momentum with the discovery of a 12th-century manuscript that describes a similar process for those corpses feared to be the walking dead. While audience members may scoff at the ignorance of the past, the filmmakers go to great lengths to show how the belief in vampires still exists today in their documentation of the vampire-slaying ritual performed in a small Romanian community in 2004, going so far as to locate the man responsible for some of the ritual's more gruesome acts. The mix of science and folklore is equitable in the film, and while viewers are asked to come to their own conclusions, one thing is clear by the end: humanity's natural fascination with monsters guarantees the myth of the vampire will endure.