Jack Harrison (Jeff Goldblum) and Gil Turner (Ed Begley Jr.) are writers for The Sensation, a supermarket-grade tabloid steered by Mac Turner (Norman Fell). Jack is a serious, time-hungry journalist who eyes Time magazine as a next step, while Gil is a lanky yes-man who craves his father’s approval and never misses a chance to chase a story, even if it means tagging along on a wild assignment.
When Mac receives a homemade videotape showing two panicked men fleeing something they fear is Frankenstein’s monster, along with a waist-down shot of the creature, he sends Jack and Gil to Transylvania to chase the lead. He bluntly warns that if they return empty-handed again, they’ll both be fired. The pressure to deliver a banner headline—Frankenstein Lives!—puts the duo on a desperate clock.
Their voyage is a chaotic odyssey of planes, trains, and buses that lands them in a place where legends feel almost tangible. Jack immediately notices Elizabeth Ellison, a pretty New York tourist, and his bottle-of-nerve approach adds a jolt of humor to the tense assignment. Gil, ever the eager opportunist, dives into the hotel-clerk questions with gusto, only to draw ridicule from locals and even the bustling mayor Lepescu (Jeffrey Jones). Jack reels Gil back from further embarrassment and they hurry toward a more secure base, though not before a gypsy named Madame Morovia hints that there’s far more beneath the surface than a simple monster hunt.
Their arrival at a hotel that resembles a 17th-century castle—gated and oddly outfitted with a bright “Opening Soon!” sign and credit-card banners—begins a chain of odd encounters. Fejos (Michael Richards) the eccentric, dryly humorous butler welcomes them at the gate, and over brunch with Lepescu, they meet Radu (John Byner) and his hunched, master-addressing servant, along with his wife Lupi (Carol Kane).
Despite the locals’ dismissive laughter, the protagonists sense something amiss in Transylvania. After Morovia’s insistence to press on, they collide with a string of real horror icons—The Wolfman, Larry (Donald Gibb), a sultry vampire named Odette (Geena Davis), and a swamp monster named Twisto that grabs Gil during a tense encounter with the larger mystery.
The trail widens to a Sicilian doctor, Victorio Malavaqua (Joseph Bologna), who has lost his license and operates from a sanatorium. Gil’s persistence to secure an appointment is rebuffed, but he quietly slips inside and overhears a disturbing conversation between Malavaqua and Percek about “experiments.” The discussion centers on a patient, Kurt Hunyadi, whose body matches the Frankenstein figure Malavaqua claims had died—an assertion the exhumation later disproves.
Gil discovers that Radu is entangled with Malavaqua as a lab assistant, and the doctor’s façade of sanity crumbles inside his laboratory, while he appears perfectly normal outside it. The twist reveals that Malavaqua not only faked Hunyadi’s death but is also the creator—along with Odette, Larry, and Twisto—of the living “monsters,” all in a bid to salvage his family name.
As the mystery deepens, Jack is attacked by the Wolfman. Gil rushes to rescue him, only to be seized by the creature himself. The local police, led by Percek, are dismissive and uninterested in the valiant exploits unfolding before them. Elizabeth—teaming up with Jack—rescues him, but the festival becomes a distraction that reveals how little the town truly cares for missing Laura, Elizabeth’s daughter.
Jack pushes toward Malavaqua’s lair while Elizabeth confronts the town’s officials at the festival. In a shocking turn, the monster returns with Laura in its arms, though she is later shown to be sleeping, not dead—the moment bends the town’s perception of fear and danger.
The confrontation with Malavaqua becomes a turning point. Jack and Gil explain the doctor’s motives and the truth of his experiments to the townspeople, reframing the “freaks” as living people who deserve dignity. The townsfolk respond with a cautious but real sense of acceptance, welcoming the outcasts into their community.
What began as a reckless assignment spirals into something far larger than a sensational scoop. Gil shoots countless photos, gathering material that could sustain weeks of reporting, and Mac finally lands the banner headline he craved. In the end, the duo’s perseverance yields not only a stunning story but also a deeper message about humanity—the ability to look beyond fear and embrace those who are different.
