Narrator/Co-host (1:59)
Anne Rice's seductive immortals and the bizarre roommates in what we do in the shadows, popular culture just cannot get enough of vampires. But there are so many more stories than the normal ones you typically meet. Here are four more powerful tales of bloodsucking monsters that defy the typical cinematic approach in glorious, gruesome ways. I'm Aaron Manke and this is Lore. In the final decades of the 20th century, the East Asian film industry was catapulted into the international spotlight by Hong Kong's fast paced martial arts films, a genre they are still known for today. But While movies like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon have since become cult classics, the more discerning film student might remember this era of cinema for a different reason. Hong Kong's growing collection of horror movies, and in particular, jiangxi Films. Between 1980 and 1990, Hong Kong produced dozens of these films. There's no denying that they were in high demand. And when you know what they were, you won't be surprised, because Jiangxi films were quite simply vampire movies. But these weren't the blood sucking vampires of Hollywood. These walking corpses were based on a Chinese folkloric monster that had been around for generations, called, unsurprisingly, the Jiangshi. Written records about the Jiangshi can be traced back to a Qing Dynasty scholar's writings in the late 18th century about reanimated corpses. And that's essentially all they were, evil zombie like creatures. In fact, the word just translates to hard corpse, which means that the original Jiangshi weren't very similar to modern day vampires at all. But over time, folklore can take on a life of its own. And as the myth of the Jiangshi spread, more of its attributes changed. They were said to look grotesque, their visage ranging from a recently deceased body to a mangled, decomposing corpse. Their skin was tinged with green or purple, possibly from mold or bruising. As their stagnant blood collected under the skin, they were typically depicted with long claw like fingers. And in films, they're often dressed in traditional Qing Dynasty clothing. Some said that they glowed, while others said that they were impossibly strong. They almost always had stiff limbs from undergoing rigor mortis, stuck out in front of them like a Halloween monster. The rigor mortis impacted their legs too, forcing them to hop everywhere as if they were stuck on a pogo stick. This rather unscary attribute has resulted in the unfortunate moniker of the hopping vampire. Despite their unusual mode of transportation, as the years passed by, the Jiangshi became less like a hopping corpse and more like a traditional vampire, albeit one that was a bit jumpy. Stories even started cropping up about them sleeping in coffins. But what they never really got was fangs. Unlike Western vampires, these creatures didn't drink blood. Instead, they absorbed chi, or the life force of their victims. Some Jiangshi were said to eat people, but more often than not, they simply drained humans of their energy. Either way, they were deadly, and you didn't want to run into one. Now, to be fair, in the movies, some Jiangshi did have fangs, but those adaptations weren't faithful to the original legends. In fact, Hong Kong horror flicks Seem to have adopted the western idea that a jiangshi's venom could transform a living person into one of them. But in the older versions of the myth, the only people who could become a jiangshi were already dead. It was surprisingly simple for a corpse to transform into a hopping vampire. Some thought that the soul could reanimate the body after a violent death. But the most popular belief was that if a body wasn't buried properly or quickly enough, Then the evil part of a person's soul could take over their body, Causing them to rise up from the dead and wreak havoc. According to legend, the first jiangshi were actually created by accident. Usually, families buried their loved ones quickly. But as work opportunities moved to the cities, Young men started to leave their villages in search of better jobs. Whenever these migrant workers died far from home, they couldn't just be buried there. Chinese burial practices demanded that citizens be buried at home, Lest their spirit seek vengeance. So families started hiring people to bring their sons back. Unfortunately, these men they hired were necromancers, and lazy necromancers at that. Instead of carrying the heavy corpses, they bound their limbs and taught the corpses to hop themselves down the road. And thus the jiangshi were born. Now, that may sound absurd, but the truth actually isn't that far off from the legend. It all calls back to a practice called corpse herding, which started in the Hunan province during the Qing dynasty. At the time, all the region's criminals Would be executed once a year in rapid succession. This resulted in a huge pileup of dead bodies that the local government had to get rid of. And while they could have buried all of them in one big ditch, they didn't. Government officials believed that even executed criminals Needed to be buried in their home villages. And that's where the corpse herders came in. You see, they fed the corpses a blend of herbs that delayed rigor mortis and kept their limbs flexible so that these dead bodies could, for lack of a better term, walk. Then they tied their arms to a long bamboo pole, and herders would grab each end of the pole, Rest it on their shoulders, and start moving forward. Now, a corpse driver would then prod at the corpse's legs, Making them seem like they were moving along with the pallbearers. The bodies bounced down the road, Partially supporting themselves and taking the load off of the corpse herders backs. That's where the laziness comes in. In this manner, they transported an untold number of bodies across the mountains of Hunan. The corpse herders always wore black, and they always traveled at night. To delay the decaying corpses. Unfortunately, even though they were providing a valuable service, they frightened just about everyone they ran into. And you can see why, right? A large party of black figures coming toward you in the night would not be a thrilling sight for anyone. And it wouldn't get much worse. Once you realized that most of the members of that party were corpses, Villagers were convinced that the corpse herders had reanimated the bodies themselves and that the Jiangshi were actually bouncing down the lane under their own power. Corpse herding, thankfully, has fallen out of style. So if you take a trip to China today, you probably won't see any jumping dead bodies. But you can always watch a Jiangxi film from the comfort of your couch. No travel required. Which is honestly, great advice. If you truly want to observe a hopping vampire, then it's probably best to do it from a safe distance. You've heard me talk about vampires plenty of times before. But cultures all over the world have stories about bloodsucking monsters. There are so many that we've barely scratched the surface. No pun intended. And today, I have a special one for you to sink your teeth into. I'm sorry. I just can't help myself. In May of 1992, not that long ago, in relative speaking, the Philippines held a presidential election. Now, this wasn't just any presidential election. It was actually the very first one to be held under their new 1987 constitution. There were thousands of candidates to choose from, and competition was tight. The entire country was under an immense amount of pressure to choose a leader who would guide them toward a better future. But despite the astronomical stakes, there was one pocket of the capital that wasn't paying any attention to the election at all. In the Tondo district of Manila, people were less concerned about who their president would be and more concerned about keeping themselves alive. Because, you see, there was a creature known as a Manananggal that was rumored to be living among them. Now, we don't really know how or when the first stories of the Manananggal originated. When Spain colonized the Philippines in the 16th century, the conquistadors did everything within their power to destroy destroy the native cultures that had once flourished on the islands. In an effort to forcefully convert the native inhabitants to Catholicism, they burned all of the non Christian documents that they could get their hands on, including whatever records there may have once been about the Manananggal. The Philippines became a Catholic nation soon after, with only a few pockets of Muslim and indigenous resistance left. Gradually, the Filipino natives lost much of their heritage and their folklore to the invading Spaniards. Many try to keep their culture alive. But without the documents to tell us where their beliefs came from, the best anyone can do is guess. And that rule certainly applies to the Manananggal. But no matter where she came from, she has remained a horrifying figure in Filipino imaginations and friends. For good reason. Beliefs about what the Manananggal looks like differ depending on who you ask. Some say that she is hideous, while others say that she is stunningly beautiful. But the key here is that she is always a woman. Unlike European vampires, who tend to lean male, the vampires of Southeast Asia trend more towards the female side. But whether a seductive beauty or a hideous hag, she is something to be feared. It's believed that the Mananangggal preys most frequently on pregnant women. In their sleep, she uses a long tube like tongue to suck blood or even the fetus out of the woman's belly. It's actually possible that the Matananggal was used as an explanation for tragedies like miscarriages. After all, it's easier to blame a vampire than to have nothing to blame it on at all. But the Madananggal doesn't exclusively drink from pregnant women. She also stalks newlyweds, children and newborns. Even brides and grooms to be aren't safe. And I can promise you, you do not want to be one of her targets. After drinking her fill, she's been known to tear her victims to pieces. The most disturbing part of this vampire, though, is what she looks like when she hunts. When it's time for her to find a new victim, she bends over at the waist and separates her legs. Stay standing while her torso breaks away, growing wings and flying off into the night, her entrails cascading down behind her. Some stories say that bat wings appear when she's ready to fly, while others say that her arms themselves turn into the wings. Either way, I doubt that's something that any of us would want to see hurtling towards us in the dead of night. And yes, just like European vampires, she only hunts at night. The sun is deadly to her, as is garlic. In fact, if you smear garlic salt or holy water onto the legs that she leaves behind, that's a way to kill her. But of course, you'd always run the risk of being discovered before you can finish the job. And today, in rural parts of the Philippines, some people still believe in the Manananggal. And as recently as the 1990s, people in major cities believed in them too. As evidenced by the hunt that happened in the 90s. Now, during this 1992 scare, people in Manila actually did claim to have encountered the Marananggal that was hunting their neighborhood. A woman named Martina Santa Rosa even claimed to have been attacked by the creature, saying, I was just lucky I was able to get free. I saw half of her body. It was naked. She had long scraggly hair, long arms, nails, and sharp fangs. Martina's neighbors even backed her up, saying that they too had witnessed the struggle to between the demon and the girl. It would seem that enough people had seen the Manananggal that they had a good idea of who she might actually be. The creature you see doesn't always look like a monster. She looks just like a normal person. Until she splits herself in half and spills her organs out, that is. And so, on Wednesday, May 6, a group of men brought a television crew to the home of a local elderly woman named Teresa, accusing her of of being the vampire. Teresa protested, of course, claiming that she herself was a victim. To prove it, she showed off her foot, which was missing several toes. She said that they had been bitten off by the Matananggal. The crowd, though, was still skeptical. So they brought her a dried stingray tail. It may sound odd to us, but it's believed that Manananggals are repulsed by stingray tails. If Teresa was in fact the vampire, she wouldn't be able to touch it. But touch it she did. Teresa reached straight out and put her hands on the tail, and that was that. Everyone accepted that she was not the Manananggal. Now, presumably, the Manananggal stopped terrorizing the people of the Tondo district soon after, but not before the situation gained international attention. Newspapers all over the world reported on poor Teresa and the search for the vampire of Manila. And if you're curious, the election happened only a few days later.
