Original subtitles

[GLASS SHATTERING]

[DOG BARKING IN DISTANCE]

[♪♪♪]

[CLANKING]

WOMAN: Ah!

[GASPS]

Mum?

Mum?

Mum?

[SCREAMS]

[♪♪♪]

[WOMAN PRAYING SOFTLY IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

[CONTINUES PRAYING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

[VOICES WHISPERING INDISTINCTLY]

[OMINOUS DEEP VOICE WHISPERING INDISTINCTLY]

[WOMAN SOBS]

[DISTANT SOBS, TORMENTED SCREAMS]

OMINOUS DEEP VOICE: Soon, child, soon.

[PANTING]

OMINOUS DEEP VOICE: I'm hungry.

[CREATURE GROWLING]

[CROWD CHEERING]

[BAND PLAYING FESTIVE MUSIC]

ETHAN: Just about then, I seen big old Crazy Horse himself,

riding up with his band of bloodthirsty Sioux killers.

-[CROWD MURMURS] -[GUNSHOT]

[CHEERS AND APPLAUSE]

[GUNSHOTS]

-MAN 1: Applaud the man. -MAN 2: Yeah.

General Custer gave the word,

his blond hair flapping in the breeze like something from myth.

Says he, "Stand here and fight, boys! Fight for your very lives!"

And so fight I did.

One of the few survivors who lived

to bring you this tale of pluck and daring.

[CROWD CHEERING, WHISTLING]

[FESTIVE MUSIC RESUMES]

Thanks for coming out today,

and I hope that I have found some favor among you,

estimable gentlemen and ladies.

Oh!

[CROWD CHEERING, WHISTLING]

[WOMAN GRUNTING, MOANING]

WOMAN: Yeah! Yeah!

Oh, yeah!

[GRUNTING]

Will I see you again? No.

Would that I could. Show's heading off to Paris.

So many details to attend to. You understand.

Life of a theatrical gentleman is peripatetic, darling.

But I was under…

Just know that you have made my visit here truly memorable.

I shall never forget you.

Perhaps you'd like to know my name, then.

[CHUCKLES]

VANESSA: You didn't tell the truth.

By my reckoning, you were a boy when General Custer died,

and 'tis well known there were no survivors.

What we call a tall tale, darling. Exceedingly tall.

Vice of my nation. We're storytellers. Join me, won't you?

You saw my exhibition? Highly impressive,

especially your finale.

Well, you gotta leave them wanting more, as we say in show business.

And what might I do for you?

I have a need for some night work. Oh, honey, don't we all?

I have a need for a gentleman who's comfortable with firearms

and not hesitant to engage in dangerous endeavors.

Or was all that a tall tale as well? What do you think?

Expensive watch, but threadbare jacket.

Sentimental about the money you used to have.

Your eye is steady, but your left hand tremors.

That's the drink, so you keep it below the table, hoping I won't notice.

You have a contusion healing on your other hand,

the result of a recent brawl with a jealous husband, no doubt.

Your boots are good quality leather, but have been resoled more than once.

I see a man who's been accustomed to wealth,

but has given himself to excess and the unbridled pleasures of youth.

A man much more complicated than he likes to appear.

So it's a job, this night work? Yes.

Something of a criminal setup?

Would it matter? Not at all.

Then why ask? Show's heading off to Paris

pretty soon. The job's tonight.

Is it a murder? Would it matter?

One smile and I say yes.

Meet me at this address at eleven o'clock.

I don't know London. Then ask a policeman.

You have a name? Yes.

[CHATTERING]

BOY: Clear off, Johnny!

[♪♪♪]

Mr. Chandler. I didn't expect you to be on time.

Oh, I never keep a lady waiting.

Very wise. This way please.

[♪♪♪]

[CHIMES TINKLING]

[MAN COUGHING]

This is the individual? Yes.

Did you bring your weapons?

One minute. What are we doing here?

We're looking for someone. More than that, you don't need to know.

Do not be amazed at anything you see and don't hesitate.

Who exactly are we looking for?

Someone very dear to me who's been taken.

[THUD]

[♪♪♪]

That which you serve, we seek.

[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

[MALCOLM SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

[MAN SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

[MALCOLM SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

[WOMAN SOBBING]

Argh!

Argh!

[WOMAN SOBBING]

[GROWLING]

[GUNSHOTS]

[GROWLING]

[WOMAN CONTINUES SOBBING]

[♪♪♪]

[WOMAN SCREAMS]

Ah!

[WOMAN SOBBING]

[♪♪♪]

Where is she?

Little girls shouldn't play with toys like that.

Where is your master?

Closer than you think. Would you like to meet him?

[GUNSHOT]

[GUNSHOT]

It's not her.

[SQUEAKING]

[GROWLS]

[♪♪♪]

[ROARS]

[SCREAMING]

She's not here.

-MALCOLM: There must be another. -VANESSA: Another creature?

Is there another? Is there another creature like that?

[GROWLS]

Jesus Christ. Don't move, Mr. Chandler.

This night's not over. Help us, please.

[GROWLING]

[SCREAMING]

ETHAN: What's this place? Where resurrection men ply their trade.

Surgeons must supply students with ample subjects.

When the legal channels are exhausted, they resort to other means.

I'm in need of your services.

'Tisn't from the river? Useless once fishes got them.

-Not the river, no. -MAN: Well, that's a blessing.

Bring it round the back and see if my assistant can take you.

[♪♪♪]

MALCOLM: Your master said you might assist us.

-I have no master. -MALCOLM: The proprietor out front.

Go away. I'll pay you for your time.

VICTOR: You'd not afford it. You're very proud.

Take it to a slaughterhouse. I'm not a medical practitioner.

You're a man with a bloody knife like everybody else, so stop putting on airs.

American? You are clever.

Do you know anything about electrical currents?

Your country is making strides as we labor in dark ages of coal and peat.

Any experience with the principles and applications of galvanism?

Oh, the usual. Sir, I have urgent need of a necropsy.

Will you assist us? I am occupied solely in research.

I will not bore myself with explanations you could not understand.

Now, kindly, stop wasting my time and get out.

VICTOR: My God.

Lividity, no.

Rigor mortis, no.

Notable ocular hyperemia.

Ocular reaction, no.

Dental malformation, not naturally occurring due to isotropy.

Nature's rarely so neat. Nature abhors symmetry.

Trauma and penetration of the chest cavity

seems the likely cause of death, but I expect you know that.

Age of the subject is impossible to determine. The teeth seem barely used,

which seems unlikely given the muscular development.

The dermis is unusual.

Seems to lack the normal cutaneous eccrine pores. Hand me that.

Well, I know why the skin seems peculiar.

Why? Forceps.

Because it isn't skin.

Not as we know it.

More like a tensile exoskeleton, along the lines of an insect or crustacean.

He must have been a hearty devil. You're not kidding.

Hold on, what's this?

[♪♪♪]

Fascinating. Hieroglyphics.

-Egyptian? -MALCOLM: Undoubtedly.

Well, you have an Egyptian man of no particular age

who, in his indeterminate lifespan, decided to sharpen his teeth,

cover himself in hieroglyphics, and grow an exoskeleton.

You have something else altogether.

Who the fuck are you people?

Do you know Grandage Place in Westminster?

I can find it. Number eight.

Come at noon tomorrow. Unless you'd rather spend

the rest of your life shooting clay targets and telling lies.

[BABY CRYING]

[ALL CHATTERING]

[BABY CRYING]

Carnage. Sir?

It's like a battlefield.

You want it all? Everything.

Even her? Especially her.

Doesn't seem right.

Where's the dignity in that?

[MAN GAGGING]

We'll get her dignity back when we've caught this monster.

[CAMERA CLICKING]

[♪♪♪]

Ethan Chandler to see Sir Malcolm.

I'm expected. Come in.

Wait here, please.

VANESSA: Not what you expected?

You've a light step, miss.

Or is it ma'am?

Miss Vanessa Ives.

Come this way, won't you?

May I offer you some tea?

No thanks.

So you're a fortune reader? The term is inadequate.

Spiritualist? If you like.

Rapping on the table? Voices from the great beyond?

Not precisely. You're a sceptic. Not about everything.

Last night, for example.

And you want an explanation?

I think I should see Sir Malcolm.

I can speak for him.

Do you believe there is a demimonde, Mr. Chandler?

A half world between what we know and what we fear?

A place in the shadows, rarely seen but deeply felt.

Do you believe that? Yes.

That's where we were last night,

where some unfortunate souls are cursed to live always.

If you believe in curses, that is.

Are you a wise man, Mr. Chandler?

Not especially.

A wise man would walk away and make a concerted effort

to forget everything occurred last night. He would not look back.

That sounds like a warning. It's an invitation.

Should you be so unwise as to entertain the idea,

we have continued use of a man of your skills.

Your kind of man. And what kind is that?

One of great violence and hidden depths.

You play your role well, Mr. Chandler, but this is not who you are.

[♪♪♪]

Tell me what this is all about.

Sir Malcolm's daughter was taken by a creature such as the one we killed.

We didn't suspect there was another.

There's much we don't know and must discover.

And what's your part in all this?

My part is my own.

I've been a hired gun before.

Doesn't suit me.

No exaltation in killing for gold. A wise man after all.

Sembene has your money. He'll show you out.

I hope you enjoy your life as an actor. It seems to be what you're suited for.

But if you find yourself in that demimonde we spoke of,

and seek to escape it, you know my address.

And what do you seek to escape?

Perhaps the same thing you do. We all have our curses, don't we?

Good day, Mr. Chandler.

Miss Ives.

Before you go, one last task, if you'll indulge me.

Pick a card.

No, not like that. Not impulsively, not without thought.

Let them work on you.

Look into my eyes.

Believe.

[♪♪♪]

[♪♪♪]

Was he tempted?

Intrigued, I would say. Then he'll be back.

He's intending to leave town. He won't. We won't let him.

I'll require you in an hour.

We have an appointment.

Where are we going?

Amongst dead things.

-[HORSE NEIGHING] -[BELL TOLLING]

-[HORSE NEIGHING] -[BELL TOLLING]

MAN 1: Mother and daughter butchered in East End Horror!

BOY: Westminster Guardian!

Only a penny!

-MAN 1: Bloodbath in Spitalfields! -MAN 2: Bloodbath.

-Police fear Ripper is back! -MAN 1: Police fear Ripper is back!

[KNOCKING ON DOOR]

Sir, Sir Malcolm Murray is outside.

The Malcolm Murray?

Oh.

I am extravagantly pleased. Do show him in.

And stand up straight, Felix. You look like an orangutan.

Mr. Lyle. Sir Malcolm.

Oh, it is you.

The photograph does you no justice, but do they ever?

Say you'll inscribe it for me. Say you will. Your book.

Something personal. It'd be a pleasure.

This is Miss Vanessa Ives.

Could I be more charmed?

No, I could not.

What brings you to the humble confines

of the Department of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities?

It's only Egyptian.

We don't quite approve the Assyrians, do we? Sit down, do.

-What are these? -LYLE: Oh, carrion beetles.

We employ them when the usual solvents are deemed too abrasive.

They eat the flesh, don't you know?

It's a bit ghoulish to the lay-person.

Very exotic. Where do they come from?

Actually, Waveney, in Suffolk.

Not exotic at all.

Mr. Lyle, I was hoping you could assist me.

I've a bit of hieroglyphics in need of translating.

LYLE: Aren't from a scroll. What are they?

They're from a tattoo on a corpse.

Oh, that's outré.

What have you got for me, then?

Late hieratic script. Eighteenth dynasty, perhaps earlier.

It's a standard funerary text.

[BIRDS SQUAWKING]

Conjoined in this fashion, they translate to an idea meaning

"blood cure" or "blood transformation."

There's a theory it's something more along the lines of a malediction,

"a blood curse." Trust me, those Egyptians were a bit madcap

when it came to specifics. It's all very metaphoric.

[♪♪♪]

Are there more of these? Yes.

I should like to see them, but not here.

The British Museum is no place for actual scholarship, after all.

Perish the thought. Before I engage in professional matters,

I feel it is vital to engage in social congress.

Get to know the sort of people one is working with.

My wife and I entertain on occasion.

Lavishly, you can be sure, as she's absurdly rich.

We're having a little fete, Friday next. You and Miss Ives could join us.

This is a matter of some urgency. Good heavens, Sir Malcolm.

There hasn't been anything urgent about the Egyptians for 2,000 years.

And I'm dreadfully busy now, you understand.

Ever so many papyri to translate.

Isn't that a delicious word?

Papyri.

Sounds like something eaten by Persian boys, doesn't it?

So I shall see you Friday next.

As you say. Grand. It's resolved.

Bring the rest of the photographs with you and we'll take a peek.

Entre nous, don't you know?

Such an infinite pleasure meeting you both.

Our pleasure, Mr. Lyle. Good day. Good day.

I do assume you know the source of the writing.

No.

It's from the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

[CHATTERING]

[DOG BARKING]

[BABY WAILING

OFFICER: Keep clear.

Stay there.

Look at that blood. Think they suffered much?

Bloody right, they did. And that little girl too.

WOMAN: She was expecting another. You don't say.

Just starting to show. Picking out names.

Is it the Ripper come back? Who else but old Jack?

Damn him that did it.

Right to hell.

[DOOR CLOSES]

[BABY CRYING]

[KNOCKING ON DOOR]

[KNOCKING ON DOOR]

A delivery for you.

From Sir Malcolm Murray.

[♪♪♪]

[DOOR CLOSES]

MAN: Concentrating around the north side, and then moving slowly south here.

[INDISTINCT DIALOGUE]

MAN: That's right.

-VICTOR: Sir Malcolm. -MALCOLM: Doctor.

So you're the explorer?

I've made one or two modest discoveries.

Murray Mountain in the eastern regions of Belgian Congo,

if you're ever in the vicinity.

Not the tallest mountain, to be sure, but not the smallest either.

Hmm.

I've spent most of my life in Africa, beholding wonders.

I was surprised to get your note.

You seem a man who holds his secrets fast. I wasn't going to come.

But you couldn't resist.

When you see a river, you must follow it to its source,

no matter the perils, no matter those comrades that fall along the way.

You must know how things work.

You must unlock.

You are dissatisfied always.

Are you dissatisfied? I'm seeking.

What? Perhaps the same as you.

Uh-uh. I seek the truth. Ah. You're a very young man.

I've long since learned truth is mutable.

We view science differently. Do we?

I would never chart a river or scale a peak to take its measure or plant a flag.

It's solipsistic self-aggrandizement.

Those scientists who study the planets

seeking astronomical enlightenment for its own sake.

Botanists studying the variegation of an Amazonian fern.

The zoologist caught up in the endless fascination of an adder's coils.

And for what?

Knowledge for itself alone?

The elation of discovery?

Plant your flag on the truth?

There is only one worthy goal for scientific exploration.

[WHISPERING] Piercing the tissue that separates life from death.

[IN NORMAL VOICE] Everything else, from the deep bottom of the sea

to the top of the highest mountain on the farthest planet, is insignificant.

Life and death, Sir Malcolm.

The flicker that separates one from the other,

fast as a bat's wing, more beautiful than any sonnet.

That is my river.

That is my mountain.

There I will plant my flag.

You have the soul of a poet, sir.

And the bank account to match.

Now, why did you want to see me, Sir Malcolm?

You tell me. Last night, of course.

The body was not, strictly speaking, human.

No.

Did you kill him? Yes.

Are there more? At least one.

What is your goal? Find a cure for a most rare disease.

I'm in a position to offer you employment.

A freethinker who might imagine a world less constrained

by what we think we know of as truth. You mean the supernatural?

I mean that place where science and superstition walk hand in hand.

An anatomist of your skill would be invaluable to my work.

You'll be well paid.

I have no interest in joining an amateur occultist society.

Nor I in forming one.

It is not a game for me.

Then stop playing as if it were. What are you after?

I'm trying to rescue my daughter.

To save her, I would murder the world.

Join me, Doctor.

With me, you will behold terrible wonders.

And how much of the world will we have to murder?

Do you care?

I've only one other question.

Why me?

Because you were unafraid to pull back the skin and look beneath.

[♪♪♪]

MAN: Ho!

[THUNDER RUMBLING]

[DOOR CLOSES]

[THUNDER CRASHING]

[BUZZER BUZZING]

[WOMAN WHIMPERS]

[WOMAN SOBBING SOFTLY]

[INHALES SLOWLY]

Mina?

[SOBBING CONTINUES]

My God.

Mina.

[WINDOW CLACKING]

[WIND HOWLING]

[SNARLS]

[♪♪♪]

You've no doubt? It was her.

Was it an appeal? I don't know.

At first, there was such a need in her eyes,

and then something monstrous.

My true friend would do you no harm. Our nature doesn't change,

only our circumstance. You don't know.

Don't I?

Was I not responsible?

But for my transgression, would any of this have occurred?

We cannot unmake the past.

We shall live with our guilt, you and I.

After all this time, she came to me.

I will find her.

There was another thought when she was so very close to me,

a strange working of memory.

I thought of a particular lion hunt many years ago.

Moving through the tall grass, getting a glimpse of the prey,

the shoulders mostly, the mane.

You prepare your rifle. You're very quiet.

And then there's a moment.

The wind changes,

the grass stops swaying.

The lion turns, looks at you.

The moment you realize you are no longer the hunter.

You are the prey.

[THUNDER RUMBLING]

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

[♪♪♪]

[INDISTINCT CHATTER]

[VANESSA WHISPERING INDISTINCTLY]

[PRAYING IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

[♪♪♪]

[LOUD METALLIC CLATTER]

[GASPS]

[♪♪♪]

[PANTING]

[THUNDER RUMBLING]

[THUNDER CRASHING]

[ELECTRICITY HUMS LOUDLY]

[THUNDER CRASHING]

[ELECTRICITY CRACKLING]

[MACHINE GRINDING]

[MACHINE GRINDING]

[GRUNTS]

[GRINDING STOPS]

[MACHINE GRINDING]

[GRUNTS]

[GRINDING STOPS]

[THUNDER CRASHING]

Ugh.

Damn it.

[RAIN PATTERING]

[THUNDER CRASHING]

[EXHALES]

[CREAKING]

[CREAKING]

[THUNDER CRASHING]

[CREAKING]

[♪♪♪]

[THUNDER CRASHING]

[BREATHING HEAVILY]

[TAKING SHORT BREATHS]

[♪♪♪]

Huh.

Can you hear?

[GASPS]

My name…

…is Victor Frankenstein.

[♪♪♪]

[♪♪♪]

[♪♪♪]