Stuff You Should Know - How Vampires Work

Episode Date: December 5, 2012

Out of obligation, Chuck and Josh mention Twilight, but it is the longstanding vampire lore that gets the most attention in this examination of how the bloodsucking undead evolved from baby-stealing demonesses to suave counts in our collective psyche. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jackmove or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant sitting across from me back in the saddle. And this is Stuff You Should Know, yo. Back in the saddle, eh? Yeah. Do you want to explain that? Or should we just leave it a mystery?

Saddle? No. Well, what the metaphorical saddle is in this case? Yeah. Well, you know, we have been kind of away even though it seems like we've been here every week. I know. Through the magic of digital recording. That's right, pre-recording. We batch-recorded our episodes and covered ourselves. We built up what we call a kitty. And we've been releasing them steadily and faithfully while we've been off recording a TV show. Recording a TV show. That's right. Our own TV show where, and you me pointing this out to me, how cool it says, we play ourselves. Yeah. I think that's the only thing I'm qualified to do. Oh yeah, totally. We would have failed miserably if we'd done anything else. Like a Sherlock Holmes

update or something like that. There's so many of those going on already. I know. So why not us? Yeah. Why not? Elementary. Yeah. My dear Clark. Yeah. But yeah, we have a TV show coming out. I guess we can talk about it freely. We're done. Yeah. We'll really ramp up the plug-age come December, but look for it in January on Science Channel. Yep. And if you don't have Science Channel, go out and purchase Science Channel. Yeah. And we do not know because I know people are already asking about online stuff if they're going to be available through various media outlets online. We don't know yet. We're working on that. We'd love for it to, but it's not up to us. Yeah. So I mean, you have to hedge your bets and get Science Channel. Yes. Add it

to your cable subscription. And if your cable provider doesn't offer Science Channel, you burn down their offices. That's right. Until they do. That's right. Yeah. Okay. So Chuck. Yes. Have you ever heard of a little movie called Twilight? Yeah. I've seen all those. You've seen them? Oh, yeah. Emily's read the books and she's way into it. So I have been sucked into it. That is very supportive of you. I don't think they're very good, but I must admit, I do want to see the final one just because it's like when you watch four of something or however many it's been, three of something, it'd just be kind of weird to stop there. Gotcha. So I will see the last one. When does that come out? I think probably sometime around this public date. Oh, really? Yeah. I think

it's Thanksgiving or Christmas release. Gotcha. Yeah. Okay. Well, I bring that up to propose that that's the only time we talk about that franchise throughout this whole podcast. Sure. Agreed. Agreed. Because vampires, which is what we're talking about. Yeah. They go back a very, very, very long way. Yeah. They've evolved. They've changed. They've shifted their shape, but they seem to all have certain characteristics in common, right? Yeah. For example, they can't see their own reflection. Well, not necessarily. Okay. If we go back to the ancient myths. Okay. They are wary of crucifixes. Crucify. No, crucifixes. Yeah. They only come out at night. Yeah. They're the undead. Yeah. Suck blood from a victim's neck.

They have to be invited into your home. Yeah. Garlic as well. Holy water. Yeah. Superhuman strength. All tenets of the modern vampire lore. Yes. And modern is a good way to put it because all of this is a fairly recent image of the vampire. Yeah. Thanks to Bram Stoker and then shortly after that, Bella Lugosi. Yeah. We now have this conception of the vampire. But like I said, it goes back way, way further than the 19th century or even the 18th century. Whoa. Yeah. It goes back as much as 4,000 years as far as we know and probably further back, right? Yeah. And I will say one thing, not to bring up the T word again, but Bram Stoker and other authors and filmmakers, the cool thing I like about the vampire in pop culture is you can pull from all these different

things to create your own creature of the night. Yes. Like some of them, you know, and like true blood, for instance, you know, they can retract their fangs. They're super sexy. They, you know, Lilith is in that. Oh, yeah. A version of Lilith that we'll talk about. Okay. So I just think that's kind of one of the cool things about vampires is Bram Stoker did the same thing. He pulled from different areas of mythology and said, this is a fictional character I'm going to create using all these old folk legends. Right. But there are some things that are very basic. The commonalities among all vampires is that generally they suck blood. Yeah. And they are dead in some way, shape, or form. Yeah. Undead. They are. They're undead. That's a great

word. He just coined an excellent term. Yeah, just made that up. So you have undead people, former people in most cases, feeding on the living. That's the vampire. It's the basis of almost all vampires. Yes. But even that has exceptions because these early, the earliest vampires that we know of that arose out of the first civilization, Mesopotamia, were actually demon goddesses, right? Yeah. Lamastu was a demon goddess. And she was the daughter of Anu, the sky god. Yeah. And she would creep in and kill your babies. Yes. She was not a happy, nice person. She had talons, wings. Yeah. And they believe that the Assyrians and Babylonians were basically going like, what is going on when they would encounter sudden infant death syndrome or miscarriages?

And they said, well, of course it is. Lamastu. Thank you. Yeah. I think it's so funny how so many of these things were sort of used to explain, and not vampires, but all kinds of folk legends, to explain like what medicine, health, says, is. SIDS. Right. Yeah. You know. Yeah. But I mean, that this basis of the vampire legend, using it to explain stuff people didn't understand. Yeah. Usually some sort of sudden death or a wasting away, as we'll see later. It spans thousands of years. People have been going back to that well for thousands and thousands of years. True. That's pretty interesting. Agreed. You know, when you look at this one group in the 19th century with the Assyrians 4,000 years ago, and they're all thinking the same thing. Yeah.

That's, I find that very interesting. That's an archetype, if you ask you. Yeah. And it just goes to show you we're all humans all over the world for as long as we've been around. We're all stupid. We're all stupid. All right. Lamastu is also associated with Lilith, who I mentioned, who this past season was on True Blood, like a version of Lilith. But she is in prominent in Jewish texts and is a lot like Lamastu. She was the first woman supposedly. Yeah. Not Eve, but Adam and Lilith. Yeah. That's like that question about like, who is the first president? Well, apparently there were other presidents for Washington. They were like eight or nine before Washington, but you just have to say, well, were they the president of the United

States? Right. No, they weren't. Right. So Lilith was a modern woman. And she was like, you know, Adam, I ain't putting up with this because I am just the same as you. I was created from God just like you are. And so stop acting like you're not made of dust. Exactly. So she left Eden, said, I'm out of here. I'm gonna have my own kids. Yeah. God sends angels to bring her back. She's like, no, I'm not going. And the angels said, all right, you think angels are nice? We're going to kill 100 of your children every day until you get back up to Eden or heaven. Yeah. And rather than say, okay, well, let's go back to Eden, then Lilith said, do it. And they did it. And so she started killing human children in return. That's right. Again, with sharp talons,

a winged demoness stealing infants and fetuses. And I find that extremely interesting that the vampire legend is kind of born out of this, this folklore of how you're supposed to be subservient to men. Right. You know, that's, that's very interesting. Yeah. Because they, there's this element of seduction that kind of was reinvented with vampires here or there. But it's one of the, it may have gone away in some areas, but it always came back. This idea that there was a woman or a person who didn't follow sexual mores, whether that sexual meaning, like intercourse or gender, they didn't follow the rules. And that's kind of like another thing that's always kept the vampire legend going or that's always been a part of it, I guess. That's

a good point. Because Lilith does set up the, the notion of the seductress, you know, we see over and over in further legends. Right. And then so Lilith is associated with ancient Jewish texts. Lamastu is from Mesopotamia. Yeah. And they, they aren't certain if Lilith was a variation of Lamastu or if they both evolved from a third character. Right. But those are the two most ancient ideas of vampires that we have. Shortly after that, we can head on over to Greece. And they had, they feared a lot of vampire like creatures. Yeah. Lamia was another demoness head and torso of a woman, lower body of a snake. Yeah. And evidently, this was one of Zeus's mortal lovers. Yeah. Zeus's wife did not take kindly to this.

Hera. Hera. And she was like, no, I'm going to make you go insane, lady, and eat all your children. Yeah. You're so crazy, you're going to eat your kids. And then come to afterward. That's right. And when she did, she went so, she, she went so berserk, not in the viking way. Not berserk her. No. Just straight up berserk. Yeah. That she became a monster. Again, killing children. Yeah. Because she was jealous of other women who had children. Who else? They also had the M. Puse. Yes. The daughters of Hakate, who was the goddess of witchcraft. Yeah. And they were shapeshifters for the first time, right? Right. So like you have all these, all these different cultures contributing to the vampire that we

understand today here or there. And it, it wasn't just the Greeks. It wasn't just the Mesopotamians. You also had India getting into the mix with the Rock Shasa, right? Which was basically like a ghoul, the shapeshifting ghoul who once again killed children. Right. And same with the Vitala, but they were more like a zombie, if you ask me. Yeah. A demon who took possession of recently dead bodies to wreak havoc on a living. That's it. That's a sound. Sounds like a zombie. And then the Chinese also had their own thing. The Kuei. Kuei. Kuei. Sure. Okay. You have to say like that though. Yeah. Yeah. Like the guy on NPR who always reports from China. Oh, to see over pronounced. He speaks normally and all of a sudden. Yeah. I mean, he's doing it accurately,

but it's like a little bit like Daniel Day Lewis doing Lincoln. It's like, yeah, that's accurate. But do you know what you sound like? I want to get rid of slavery. That was sort of like a jacked up Kennedy. That's weird. So how do Kuei come about? They are corpses who would rise from the grave, kill again. And that happened when a person's lower spirit did not pass to the afterlife because of bad things they did. So the Po was angered by this. That's the lower spirit. Yeah. And they would reanimate basically and say, you know what? I'm going to attack the living at night once again. Because what else do I have to do? Nothing. Well, it's a good way to exact revenge.

Just have to hang around here and hit the wheelbarrow. So all of these stories were floating around the world and eventually through trade and things wound up in Europe. Yeah. The first globalization, the Silk Roads started bringing all these things together. And yeah, they moved over to Europe. And that's where they really sort of took off. Yep. I guess you could say. And in the place that became the epicenter, was Central Europe or Eastern Europe? Yeah, Russia. Yeah. Early on with the Upir. And again, Greek with the, oh boy, Rikolakis or Vycolakis? Vycolakis. Yeah, that's good. One of those is good. You can't start a word with four consonants. Right. One of them's

got to be silent. Yeah. And this kind of like was an offshoot of the Chinese conception of how a vampire became a vampire. The Upir, which they think is the word that led to vampire or vampire, was basically a person who during their life was a sinner, unbaptized baby, which is really sad. A vampire baby. Yeah. That's kind of funny. And anyone who wasn't a Christian. Yeah. Practitioners of witchcraft, especially, of course, for obvious reasons. Because you'd already sold your soul to the devil. Yeah. So you're doomed. You're like halfway there. Right. So all of these factors combined to basically make you a loser in the afterlife,

and you're going to come back. And families were, I guess, aware of this kind of thing. They knew that there was the possibility that Uncle Vigo, who had a lot of big gambling problem, which the village looked down upon when he was alive. When he died, well, he was probably going to become an Upir. And so if all of a sudden Uncle Vigo's like nephews start dying in a weird way. Yeah. Say, maybe a dread disease. The family would probably go dig up Uncle Vigo and do crazy stuff to his body. Yeah. And one thing to point out here, this is, I think, the first time with the Upir that we get the notion that they would go back to the grave to rest. Oh yeah. It's a big one. On a regular basis. And that sets things up moving forward kind of. Right. So like you said,

they would sometimes dig these bodies up, sometimes burn them, drive a stake through the heart. They would really take care of this corpse. They would bury them face down sometimes. Yeah. So like if they tried to crawl out, they would be headed in the wrong direction. That's pretty awesome. Gotcha. Yeah. Or stakes facing down. So if they tried to crawl up, they would stake themselves. Yeah. And that was, this is the, about a thousand years ago, in Central Europe, this stuff, or Central or Eastern Europe, this stuff started to, these beliefs started to come about. Yeah. That you could solve your vampire troubles by butchering the corpse of the suspected vampire. Yeah. And it started then and it carried on,

anytime there was a vampire panic, which interestingly, almost always attended an outbreak of some sort of disease. Yeah, I could see that. Because once again, they're just trying to explain away. Exactly. Medical conditions. Right. People would dig up corpses and like do crazy things to them. Like in Venice, they found a 16th century corpse that had a brick in its mouth. Oh, really? That was no accident. No. It didn't fall in there. And then in the 1850s, there's this really cool article, Chuck, called The Great New England Vampire Panic. Oh, yeah. It was on the Smithsonian website recently. It is awesome. And in the 1850s in Connecticut, there was a tuberculosis outbreak and people panicked and started digging up

graves and then just completely rearranging the people's bones or cutting out their hearts and burning them and doing all sorts of crazy stuff. And these were, this is the 1850s. Yeah. I mean, this wasn't the dark ages. Like people were starting to have an understanding of like disease. Looks like the Salem witch trial. Same deal. Right. But 200 years later, 150 years later, you know. So there was this big panic still as recently as the 1850s in the U.S. among, you know, folk who dug up their family members and like burned their hearts. Those people are funny. Yeah. They call them undecided voters. But those are the people that I'm talking about that they're doing the same thing or thinking the same things that the Assyrians

did 4,000 years before. I just think that's so interesting. It is. And backward. Yeah. So in Wallachia, Moldavia, in Transylvania, which is now Romania, they had something called Strigoi. And Strigoi were, they were a little bit different because they were, they would go through different stages after rising from the grave. Like at first, they were just poltergeists and they were invisible spirits that would torment their family in the afterlife or in their regular life. The Strigoi's afterlife. Right. Does that make sense? Yeah. But then they would, as time passed, they would become visible looking like they did in life and they would still return and steal cattle and bring disease and all that stuff to

their family. Big for food. Yeah. Why would they do this to their family? That's what I never got. I think I saw later that metaphorically, it's a, it's basically a vampire lore is a life lesson. Okay. Like don't be a drain on your family. Support your family. Take care of your parents in their old age. Like you don't want to be a Strigoi. Okay. You know what I mean? Sure. I guess it makes sense. And Strigoi or a Strigo, which I guess is the singular of the Strigoi, they would have to go back to the grave a lot just like the Upir did. And they followed the same pattern. They, if they thought someone was a Strigo, they would exhume the body and take care of it the old fashioned way. Right. And, but here's a little loophole. If you

manage to survive for seven years as a Strigo, then you're good to go. They're like, all right, you've got staying power. You just go do your Strigo thing. Right. You are like the living dead. You no longer have to like return to your grave to rest. You're basically reborn. Well done. And apparently the Strigo couldn't or the Strigoi couldn't make their way in their town. Yeah. After that seventh year, you know, because they weren't allowed to vote. There was all sorts of all the tribal mutilations. Right. So they would move to other towns and they would have secret meetings with other Strigoi. And that's where the idea of vampires fraternizing came from. Yeah. Hanging out. Yeah. Talking shop. Yeah. Basically the secret culture of vampires existing

outside of our awareness. Yeah. Remember, uh, remember like on Jerry Springer when that was on or it might still be on have no idea. I think it is. Is it really? Yeah. Wow. Is it still the same crap? Oh, yeah. Yeah. He didn't take the high road at some point. No. I just remember back in the day they would have like those real vampires, the people that live the vampire lifestyle. There's a video of it in this, um, is there in this article? Oh, boy. Yeah. Those people. Yeah. The guy looks like a cross between Marilyn Manson and Brandon Lee. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Kind of kind of odd looking. He's got the contact lenses and everything. Yeah. No, they'll shave down their their fangs like for real, right? They'll file them down. Yeah.

The war on drugs impacts everyone whether or not you take America's public enemy. Number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute, uh, 2,200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah. And they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs. Of course. Yes. They can do that. And I'm the prime example. Okay. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. Cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call

a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Our nation loves true crime. And it's no wonder in the past decade, one in four Americans have reported being victims of crime. But what happens when we survive? That's what we explore in the podcast. Survivors Heal hosted by me, Oya El-Sharrells. I've worked as an organizer, activist and advocate for the past 15 years. And for the past five years, I've been on the ground for providing services to survivors of crime. I invite you all to listen in as we discuss the healing side of true crime and what I call the new survivors movement. Listen to survivors heal available on

my iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Um, so there's two types of Strigoi, right? You've got the Strigoi Mort. Not Morty. No, Mort is in dead. Yes. So this is the basically who we were just describing. And then the Strigoi view, which is the living, the person who's going to become a Strigo when they die. Yeah, people that I feel very sorry for because they were probably just born with a bump. What are those called? The, um, when you're born with a like really just racking my head with a vestige, like a partial tail. Yeah. Uh, vestigial tail. Yeah. That's what it is. No, there's a word for it. I can't remember. I'm so tired of doing this. Well, it's how many hours have we wasted

combined saying, Oh, I wish I could remember it. Well, we just invented this off the top of our head. So don't get yourself out of vans. Atavisms. Yes. Exactly right. Atavisms. So van is a some sort of drug. Yeah, it is actually. Um, so your poor baby born with a vestigial tail, a little bump on the top of your tailbone or some sort of fetal membrane still attached to the head, which is called a call. Yeah, they would just call you a Strig Strigoi view or view. Right. And you're sort of like, sorry, I was born with this bump. I'm not a vampire living, walking on the earth. They said, no, you are right. And if you have kids and they're going to be Strigoi in the afterlife and we'll have to destroy your body when you die. And they did.

And they did so. But I guess it's kind of nice that they didn't just kill the person while they were living. They just shunned them, I'm sure. Yeah, exactly. The idea of a call like having some sort of special significance is it goes beyond the vampire thing too. Like I'm sure like you're gifted with a second side or there's all sorts of like supernatural paranormal folklore surrounding people born with a call. Once again, people have proven to be stupid over the years. So. But this is where vampire came in, right? Yeah, the Strigo the Strigoi started to come to be called the Vampyr, which is again from up here in the Russian. And all of a sudden the stage is set for the vampire legend to really take hold as it's taking shape. Yeah, like this is where pop culture came into

play. Hysteria had set in and so painters and artists and authors had this material that's pretty rich for the time. Right. All this hysteria is going on. So let's write a scary book about it. And that's what Brahm Stoker did. Yeah. And he was, he was, are you going with Brahm? I go with Brahm. You go Brahm? Yeah. Have you ever read it? No, I saw the movie, though. Hey, I heard the movie was a pretty faithful adaptation. With the Coppola one? Yeah. Yeah, it was pretty good. The book is great, though. I took a literature of horror class at Georgia. Oh, neat. And it was one of the cooler classes I took. I'm sure. We did Dracula and Frankenstein and like the House of Usher and then a bunch of short stories. Yeah. Very cool. So Brahm Stoker,

also Abraham Stoker, which I didn't know until I read this. Did you know that? That was his first name? Yeah. Yeah, just because of the class. He was a theater manager and a novelist and also a really great researcher. Yeah. Because, you know, all this stuff from this vampire hysteria. Yeah. Panic from all this took place like hundreds of years before him. And I guess I don't know what inspired him exactly or where he saw it or where the where this all took place. But he didn't just go, Oh, that's a pretty good idea. And wrote his book like he went and did some serious research. Yeah. Supposedly he was inspired by he was a personal assistant to this actor who ran the theater that he worked at. Okay. And supposedly

Henry Irving was a guy's name was the inspiration to write the book. And I don't know if that meant he was some jerk. And he was like, I'm just going to personify you as a blood sucker. Right. Or what? But or maybe he just inspired him creatively. Who knows. Right. But I bet someone knows more about this than I do. Oh, I'm sure. So write in and tell me. And so Brahm Stoker goes and he starts to do some research and pokes around and he finds a great place to set this vampire tale is in Transylvania, which is the heart of the Strigoi vampire. This is where everything that we just talked about came together. Wallachia, Transylvania, Romania is what we call it today. Yeah. And and he thought, well,

this is just perfect. I'm going to set it there. And let's see if I can find somebody of that area who I can base this vampire character on. And he came up with a guy named Vladislav Basarab. Yeah, that's a creepy name, period. Yeah. But it would be even creepier. He was the prince ruled Wallachia in the mid 1400s. Creepier is that his father was Vlad Dracula, Vlad the dragon or the devil. And Vlad Jr. was referred to as Vlad Dracula, which is son of Dracula or Vlad Tepis or Vlad the impaler. Because even though it's not verified, supposedly he was a very fierce warrior. He would impale his victims. No, okay. I really feel like we should do the real Count Dracula episode sometime. Yeah. I wrote this awesome

article on it. And it is it's verified. It was their real country. It's about Vlad Tepis, the Vlad the impaler. Yeah, because he just borrowed the name and then in the title, right? He wasn't really based on this guy who Count Dracula, Brahms Stoker's. Yes, version, right? Vlad Tepis was probably far, far worse than anything Brahms Stoker wrote about Count Dracula. Way worse. Oh, yeah. Yeah, his like it is verified. Like, yes, he had all sorts of guys who were against him and who published extensively all these books and pamphlets and all this stuff to smear his name. But they got a lot of stuff right. Yeah. Like he was into some horrible stuff. He killed a lot of people. He had a lot of people killed his armies killed a lot of people.

He is probably like most rulers of the day. He was, he was worse. He was most likely worse than anybody else. So he borrows this name and this title and social standing as an aristocrat aristocrat. Great movie. Aristocrat. He has a naked woman in that one. In the aristocrats? Yeah. The Disney cartoon? Yeah, that's the one with them. Is that the one with them? No, I'm thinking of the rescuers. Oh, I remember that there's a naked woman in the rescuers. Yeah. When they're flying through the city, if you watch it frame by frame, they pass by a window. And there is a photograph of like a woman standing in the window naked. And like you have to watch it like in, you know, frame by frame is the only possible way to see it. But it's in there.

Oh, those animators. Yeah. They were dirty. There's also the little mermaid thing. The fallacies? Yeah, the hidden, not so hidden, fallacies. Yeah. I'll bet that guy was like, no one's ever going to see this. Then he lost his job forever. So Stoker borrows this, the name, like I said, the social standing says this would be a great setting. Let's throw it in Transylvania. Let's change a few things. Let's borrow from a bunch of different folklore and let's say maybe you can't go out in the sunlight and let's bring up the crucifixes now and let's make them really smart and charming. And well, that was largely Bella Lugosi that did that. Well, no, Brom Stoker's was totally like that. I thought his was that he was like a

withered, ugly old man. Yeah, but he was still had like the stuck to powers. Oh, his suave and all that. His suave. Well, because he changed ages, if I remember correctly. Well, he does in the movie. And I've heard the movies are pretty faithful adaptation. And it was also, I think the first time where all of a sudden they didn't have any reflection, because most of the previous legends, they loved their reflection. Yeah, apparently, not only were they in love with their own reflection and they could be lost for hours staring into a mirror, they were also supposedly obsessive compulsive as some like Eastern folklore goes and one way to ward off vampires was to spread seeds outside of your house,

because that vampire would be bound to count every single seed. Yeah. And if you put a little nail or attack or something in there, when the vampire went pick that one up, it would prick itself and all drop all the seeds and forget where it was and start counting all over. Oh, you gotta start counting again. And then you just be sitting inside laughing, drinking your ale. Stupid vampires. Yeah. So that was another difference. I'm sorry. We've been calling them stupid vampires. And up until the 19th century, like you could make that case, like they were kind of dead zombie-esque a little bit. Yeah. It was Stoker that introduced, like you say, not to sell this other stuff, but the acute intelligence. That's right. This is very smart,

like power persuasion, almost hypnotic, um, Svangali type. And in true blood, they have this thing they do called glamoring, which is kind of a silly name. But it's almost like a charm, like a spell that they can put over you if you like, lock eyes with one. And, you know, when you glamor them, they're, you know, basically in a hypnotic state, you can, they're highly suggestible. I get into a sexual way. Oh, really? Well, in all kinds of ways. But yeah, there's plenty of, they usually are just like, take off your pants. Do they say like that? They point and say in a creepy tone. Yeah. See, you don't tell me you can't act. You could play the role as a vampire, take off your pants. Yeah. Yeah. You got the job. Let's do some vlogging.

So you mentioned 1931's Bella Legosi film Dracula, which was, you know, where we get the, the cape and the I want to drink your blood and the sort of familiar modern vampire that pop culturally speaking, that we're familiar with today. Yeah. And one of the best songs ever. Bauhaus's Bella Legosi's dead. Yeah. Excellent. 1922 silent film Nos Veratu with Max Shrek. Yeah, a little more true to the original creepy looking guy. What was the movie starring Willem Defoe and Oh, about John Malcolm Nos Veratu? Yeah. Yeah. That was good. What is the name of that movie? Do you remember? I can't remember. Dude, that is such a good movie. Yeah. I want to see that movie again. I do too, actually. It's a great one. The ending is just awesome. Yeah.

What is it? Shadow of the Vampire. Thank you, Jerry. That live correction. And rice then came along and yeah, nothing happened in between. Yeah, plenty of legacy and Andrew, but and rice definitely brought things more into the forefront as far as this range of emotions and he's really complex characters. Yeah. I didn't think the books were very good, but it's just not my bag. Oh yeah. No, I read the first one. And it's just not my thing. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I'm not saying it was not good. It's just not my thing. I'm with you. Buffy the Vampire Slayer, of course, classic, not so great movie, great TV series. Are you out of your mind? You didn't like the movie? I didn't think it was very good.

No. Oh, you're crazy. You love the movies. I love that movie. Oh, well, that's good. Yeah. I thought it really became itself when the cast changed in the I love that movie. Yeah. Well, that's great. Have you seen that South Park where like all the kids start becoming like vampires? All the good stuff is like very trendy and hip to be to be like a vampire and give yourself a new name and everything. And they drink Clamato. Oh, I love Clamato. Yeah. You're in the minority, buddy. That's the secret to my famous Bloody Mary. I know you told me. Yeah. It's a good South Park Chuck. I'll check it out. Where are we now? Should we talk about psychic vampires a little bit? I guess. All right. These are people in modern times that claim that they crave and feed on

others energy, their psychic energy. And they claim to be vampire rich or vampiric vampire ask vampire ask in that they will not if they do not do this, then they will not have feel like they have fed on, you know, sustenance. Like that is their sustenance is other people's psychic energy. And it also goes back. It's, you know, modern people claim this, but it goes back, you know, thousands of years. This phenomenon does. It's nothing new. Well, I actually think that it may have given rise to vampire lore as we understand it now. Yeah. And it's also a metaphor. If someone, you know, someone can call someone a psychic vampire if they're just a drain as a person. Yeah. You know, those people. Oh, I do. Energy vampires. That's right. Not to be confused with the other

kind of energy vampire, which is like your coffee maker. Yeah, these things that are left on all night. So there's, there's, we kind of touched on it earlier, the idea of why where we would have gotten vampire legends. People use it to explain phenomenon that we didn't understand before. There was such a thing as like germ theory, right? Right. So you have like Lamasse to being blamed for SIDS and miscarriages, that kind of thing, right? Yeah. And then you have a couple other diseases that we've come to understand that they're like, you know what, we've never really definitively linked this to vampire lore, but I'll bet you this gave rise to it. It probably didn't help. So like, like what? Porphyra. Did I pronounce that? Porphyria. Porphyria. All right, we'll go with that.

Have you ever seen the others? Oh, is that what those kids had? Yeah. Okay. All right. That makes sense. It's a rare disease. Irregularities in the production of him with Hemi, which is an hemoglobin. Heme. Heme. Yeah. I like Hemi. That thing got a Hemi. That's a, that's an engine. Yeah. And basically what you're going to be sensitive to sunlight, you're going to have a bad stomach pain, you may be delirious. Back in the day, one prescription may have been to drink blood. So I would say that's probably a dead giveaway right there. Yeah. And have you seen pictures? Yeah. Of people stricken with this? Creepy looking. Yeah. Their teeth can be like red or black, and their gums can be red and black. Which is I think probably another reason why they link

that to that. And it's hereditary. So there, you know, there were places where there was more of this happening than other places. Right. Which would also lend itself to the whole vampire thing. And feeding on your family. Yes. Same with tuberculosis. Like when people were kind of spread out except your family. And there were 19 of you. Yeah. And you all lived in one house. Yeah. If one of you had TB, probably the rest of you were going to catch TB. And a lot of you were going to die from it. Yeah. And whoever was the first one to die of this was probably the original vampire who was feeding on the other. And you were probably the one who's going to be dug up and have your heart cut out and burned. Yeah. But at that point, who cares? And then there's another disease called

catalepsy, which is associated with epilepsy. Yeah. This one is freaky. Do you ever see that Twilight Zone where I can't remember what actor it was. It may have been the professor from Gilligan's Island where he's in a car wreck and he's paralyzed. And he's the whole thing is just him talking to himself in his head like he's like these people. Yeah. To not bury him. Wow. Because he's not dead. And it's really it's a great episode. So is he cataleptic? No, he was kind of like you said locked in Twilight Zone. Catalepsy is a it's a specific neurological disorder. Like I said, it's associated with epilepsy where your muscles just freeze up. And an episode like this can last for days. Yeah. And your heart rate slows and your

respiration slows and you're alive. And God knows what your brain's doing, but you're alive during this time. Yeah. But you know, prior to say embalming, you may have just been taken for dead and put in the ground and you had to dig your way out and go back home. Yeah. And it's also associated with schizophrenia. So you're sitting around the dinner table and Uncle Uncle what? Vigo. Uncle Vigo. Remember, I like to gamble. He comes in three days after you buried him, brushing dirt off his overhauls in a schizophrenic having a schizophrenic episode. And you, you know, you're going to put a stake through his heart. Yeah. Yeah. You know, if you're smart, which is just not fair because after an experience like that, it's like, why would you wait? Why not? Why not

let fate kill this man before he goes through this horrific, cataleptic experience? And then it all end with a stake through the heart. Just let him get hit by a truck or the hammy or something ahead of time. And then I'm not so sure about this suggestion, but it might carry a little weight that what happens after a regular human body dies. Yeah. Might have fed into this a little bit. I would say so. Fingernails and hair continue growing. So this is like if they dig you back up, they're like, look, the fingernails are long. The hair is grown. They're bloated because you're full of, you know, gases expanding. So let's cut them open. And this, all this fluid drains out. And they see they've been growing their hair and fingernails and feeding on others bodily fluids.

They're alive. They're well or undead. Right. But, uh, well, I mean, I could see that. Like, they're going back and resting. And like, they obviously have gorged themselves. Look at their stomach. It's all distended. Yeah. So I mean, I think it was probably like the nail in the coffin on their beliefs. Like this is, this is all absolutely correct. Yeah. I could see that now. Yes. And then the notion of the vampire bat came along later on where the vampire could shape shift into bats and sometimes wolves. Right. Although in twilight, wolves and vampires are on opposite sides. Yeah. I said I would mention it again. Yeah, I know. And there I went. But the whole thing of the vampire bat was just like a creepy, you know, real vampire bats

are docile creatures and they might drink like the blood of a cow, but they're not attacking people. No. That was all for, for. There's harmless as vampire babies. Yeah. Yeah. What are some of your favorite movies, Josh? Oh, uh, vampire movies? No, just comedies. Like DC cab. Yeah. Dr. Detroit. Um, I would say probably the best of all time, in my opinion, is Lost Boys. It definitely has a kitsch value now. That is a great movie. It doesn't hold up super well though. Have you seen it lately? No, I haven't seen it in a while. No. It's the ways that other 80s movies don't. Huh. Really? Because that was like a cool movie. Yeah. Echoing the bunny man covered the doors in it. Come on.

Yeah, that's a weird one. It's a, it's a strange song. Near dark. Did you ever see that one? I don't think so. 1987, Bill Paxton and that one guy, Lance Heinrichson, they're like these modern vampires traveling in an RV through the desert and killing people. Really good. I have not seen that. Near dark is excellent. What about first bite with George? George Hamilton? Yes. First bite? Was that what it was? Yeah. He's like a disco Dracula. Vampire's Kiss was funny. Nick Cage. I never saw that one. It was good. I thought the original Fright Night, granted it was the 80s again, but for me, it was pretty good back in the day. I haven't seen that. Chronos? Have you seen that? No. Guillermo del Toro? I don't. Good one. I think

I've seen it. And then, of course, let the right one in. That's a great one. Both versions to me. Very good. Oh, really? I heard the American version was compared to the original. I thought they were both pretty great. I'll check it out then. You know, they didn't like, definitely didn't ruin it by Americanizing it. And then there are, of course, the bad ones like Van Helsing, Wes Craven's Dracula 2000, Bloodrain, R-A-Y-N-E. I mean, there's lots and lots of bad vampire movies. Dracula dead and loving it. That was good, though. Do you know how many emails we're getting from people that say, like, you forgot about this one? Yeah. Let's just say there are hundreds of vampire movies. There's TV shows now,

vampire diaries, True Blood, which I mentioned, which is sort of good again after falling off the rails in my opinion. And Twilight Breaking Dawn, part two. What is your problem? It's twice. In theaters near you. Oh, actually, that's 79 Dracula with Frank Langella. That was good. Did he play Dracula? Yeah. Yeah, he was good. Oh, yeah. Okay. I could see him. I'm sorry. I wasn't thinking of the right person. And then if you're into old movies, you know, you can't go wrong with Bella Lugosi or Nosferatu. Yeah. Take some time, watch an old movie. That's what I say. Yeah. That's pretty much your life coaching. I think so. Okay. Take some time, watch an old movie, says Chuck. Yeah. Watch something in black and white for a change.

Hey, also, while we're on this kind of scary-esque topic, you want to plug somebody real quick? Yeah, I think we have another horror fiction selling his stuff, right? Right. As we said, we would plug people who send in their stuff for a horror fiction contest and who went on to publish stuff. And one of the guys, Christopher Kelly, who wrote the very cool short story variable, took us up on that. And he says that he has a creepy novella about two boys whose father tries to kill them called Abraham Road, not Bram Road. He says that it's what would have happened if HP Lovecraft rewrote of Mice and Men, which is pretty awesome. Yeah. It's available on Kindle. You can go find that on Amazon.com, Abraham Road ebook. And then he also has a collection

called I held my breath as long as I could, 23 stories of the strange, the sinister and the literary. And you can get that on Amazon as well. So check those out. Christopher Kelly, thanks for sending in your work. We liked it a lot. And remember, anybody else who has published and entered our horror fiction contest, we want to say thanks by letting everybody know about your stuff. Agreed. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2,200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs. Of course,

yes, they can do that. And I'm a prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Our nation loves true crime. And it's no wonder. In the past decade, one in four Americans have reported being victims of crime. But what happens when we survive? That's what we explore in the

podcast, Survivors Heal, hosted by me, Oya El-Sharels. I've worked as an organizer, activist and advocate for the past 15 years. And for the past five years, I've been on the ground floor providing services to survivors of crime. I invite you all to listen in as we discuss the healing side of true crime and what I call the new Survivors Movement. Listen to Survivors Heal, available on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. If you want to know more about vampires, and it's been a while, you can type that word into the search bar at howstuffworks.com. It will bring up a bunch of cool stuff, including who is the real Count Dracula. This vampire article written by Tracy Wilson, which is a great one. Oh, Tracy

wrote that? Yeah, couldn't you tell? It's pretty thorough. And then also another one I liked a lot was the Hungarian Countess, the world's most prolific serial killer. She's like the female Dracula, Elizabeth Bathory. Awesome stuff. I typed that in the search bar, and it will bring all this great stuff up. As I said, search bar, it's time for listener mail. All right, Josh, we're going to call this trivia plug. We went to New York for Comic-Con, and we had one of our trivia nights there. And one of the things that we were required to do and want to do is read the names of the trivia winners. And so I got emails from them and the runner-up team, because they were cool, and I'm going to read them all. This is from the winner, Kyle Janusz, or Janusz. Not sure

how you pronounce that. Thanks, guys, for hosting the event. As an avid SYSK listener, our team, Steve Holt, had a great time. The team name was Steve Holt. We were made up of mainly former Midwesterners, which gave us a good advantage in the Great Lakes question. We had three girls in fashion, Caitlin Grummel, Monica Lange, and Amy Guidal. We also had three teachers, Dan Ferrell, Michael Rakowski, and myself, Kyle Janusz. And my twin, who does social work, Mike Janusz. Yeah. And my friend who seems to always be working for a pyramid scheme, Micah Sterling. So those were the winners there. And he says the fashion expertise did not come in handy this time, but we were prepared for anything, except for the Kevin Smith movies category. Which I wasn't

a fan of. It was rough. They were far behind coming in the last question, but wagered it all and won. It's crazy. That's how it goes. They're one of our trivia events. Yeah. So Kyle and his brother, Mike, remember meeting them? They were buddies with Joe Rendezzo. Yeah. And he says thanks for hosting and thanks for the sweet t-shirts. Yeah. And then the runner-ups. Runners up. Runners ups. Sorry. The ghost of William Sapphire just ran through me. Thanks for hosting the super fun trivia night at the cutting room. And boy, by the way, thank you, cutting room. Yeah. That place is amazing and very generous in hosting us. And it is back up and running after like redoing the inside. And it is really nice. So give them some love if you live in New York. I'm a long time listener,

four years of pure love. And I recently got my boyfriend, David, hooked as well. And it has been a nerdy bonding experience for us. Anyway, we decided to come up from Virginia. Came up from Virginia for this. That's a long drive. We met some awesome people in line and formed Teen Phil. Our lovely teammates were Paul Migowski, Leah Tallman, Jen Nelson, Charlie Tran, David Burry, and two others who skipped out early. And myself, who is Natalie David. And Natalie is the one who brought us the Mike's On pants off t-shirts. Oh, yeah. So not only was that super nice, but they sat in the table next to us. And I was able to talk a lot of smack with them. And so I said, I would read about them on the show. That's just

how it goes at one of our trivia events. We bring people together. Chuck talk smack like directly to you. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. So Natalie David says thanks a lot and cheers and I hope you enjoy the shirts and I like good stuff. Yeah, we also we met the Convo Kings who we've been in touch with. That's right. They have a podcast of their own called appropriately appropriately the Convo Kings. Very nice guys. And yeah, that's worth checking out too. Yeah. So it was great fun meeting everyone and it's always fun. I enjoyed rubbing elbows like that. Nice people. Yeah. What else? All right. If you have had a good experience because of stuff you should know, whether it's at one of our trivia events, standing in line for one of our trivia events,

or nothing at all, you can tweet to us right at syskpodcast. You can join us on facebook.com slash stuff you should know. You can send us a good old fashioned email to stuffpodcast at discovery.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Looking to continue the story, make sure to stream our new documentary, The Big Payback, co-directed by me and Whitney Dow. As we examine the attempt to make reparations for African

Americans, a reality available now on the PBS app or wherever you get your films.