The funny thing about vampires is that there really isn't any secret to them. Everybody knows the basics, right? They don't tan well, they hate garlic, stake is bad for the heart, and they're immortal, and so on and so forth. So why would History Channel see fit to make a documentary about them? Well, the popularity of the Twilight book series is a good place to start when looking for a reason. In fact on the release of the DVD for this 2006 documentary even includes a little blurb about the film on the plastic, stating that if you were interested in Twilight, you'll want to see this. I'm not necessarily sure that's true, but regardless of that fact Vampire Secrets is a decent enough look into the myth of the vampire throughout the ages.

Clocking in at a smidge over an hour and a half, there's actually more to Vampire Secrets than you'd think. A lot of the material here gets rehashed over and over again throughout its runtime, and most of the stuff is simply basic information. Thankfully the documentary focuses more on what people probably don't know about, rather than the bloody atypical mythological morsels.

Vampire Secrets goes back and forth in time to tell different stories about people who believed they were vampires, and how the people responded to them. For instance there's a modern day retrospective of the Vampire: The Masquerade role-playing game. Through a series of poorly reenacted scenes the documentary goes on to introduce us to what The Masquerade is, and how it affected the life of murdering kook Rod Ferrell, who thought he was a real vampire and killed his girlfriend's parents. This "I think I'm a vampire" theme is carried on for quite some time throughout the documentary with some comments from others, and a focus on the vampire underground and gothic culture. This part wasn't as fascinating as some of the more historical accounts, and for all intents and purposes it came across as just kind of silly with the manner with which it was presented here.

As far as the historical references to vampires, there are a few stories that are reenacted, such as James Spalding, who was hung around 1400 in Scotland. He was buried, but wasn't quite as dead as his executioners though. Needless to say when he strolled back into town everyone freaked out and thought he was the walking dead. Aside from this incident there are a couple others that are referenced along with some information about how the mythos of the vampire came about and spread. An interesting side note is how the churches and governments released information about the best ways of dispatching vampires. Apparently some people even had vampire slaying kits complete with stakes, holy water, garlic, and crosses.

Other parts of this documentary come from the various forms vampires have taken over the years with regards to entertainment. From movies to television and books, the way we look at vampires today is drastically different to how they were perceived a hundred years ago. This discussion also includes quite a bit about Bram Stoker's Dracula and Anne Rice's novels. These segments go on to show the writer's inspirations, but in the case of Stoker's it digs into how he conceived of the Dracula character and how it was received after the fact. Based on the figure of Vlad the Impaler, Dracula has become the symbol of vampires, but then again I suppose you didn't need me, or this documentary, to tell you that. I guess that's kind of the problem with this release.

As interesting as Vampire Secrets may be at times, it's a rather redundant documentary. There's nothing new here, very little that is based on "historical events", and the reenacted bits are just too tacky for their own good. What information you'll pull away from it is light at best, and mostly sensationalized through awful bits of drama. This may make an entertaining watch if you happen up on while flicking through the channels, but I wouldn't buy into the DVD release. There's just not enough here to warrant its own release and the quality isn't as high as some of History Channel's other efforts.

Vampire Secrets is presented on DVD with a 1.33:1 full frame aspect ratio featuring cropped widescreen, which should be expected if you're familiar with other History Channel releases. The picture quality of this release is rather sporadic to say the least. The video is full of grain (rather strong at times) and compression artifacts, all around the film quality is all over the map. The interview segments fare the best thanks to some slightly sharper resolution. By comparison the reenacted moments are much too soft and poorly shot. I'm sure these flaws were inherent in the original production, rather than being a byproduct of the DVD release, but either way you slice it the show just doesn't look as good as it could have.

The DVD for Vampire Secrets is presented with a 2.0 stereo English Dolby Digital track as its only source. Again, the quality is more or less what you'd expect from a release such as this, and for what it's worth the DVD didn't really need more to get the point across. This being a dialogue-driven documentary, the 2.0 services the material adequately enough. There really was no need for a 5.1 track, and in the reenacted scenes it most likely would have been wasted. The sound is crisp, clean, and suitable for the show such as it is. No subtitles are included.

Vampire Secrets contains no bonus features and the only "extra" if you'd want to call it that is chapter select. There aren't even any trailers for other History Channel releases!

Vampire Secrets isn't bad per say, but it's not exactly a breakout success. This is the kind of documentary that is best watched on TV, rather than bought on DVD. The quality simply feels like it was intended to be low budget and there's a certain amount of camp to everything. The information is light, the material feels stretched out (100 minutes talking about vampires?), and the dramatic reenactments are chuckle worthy at best. If the show focused more on the historical facts rather than the goofy drama, and it cut back on the runtime, it probably would have been much better. Alas that's not the case and as far as History Channel documentaries are concerned this one just doesn't feel as polished as it should have. If you're interested and you can't find it on TV consider this DVD a rental, but otherwise don't bother. Rent it

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