Years later, Hans Werner (Robert Morris) is working as an assistant to Baron Victor Frankenstein (Peter Cushing), helped by Dr Hertz (Thorley Walters) who is in the process of discovering a way of trapping the soul of a recently deceased person. Frankenstein believes he can transfer that soul into another recently deceased body to restore it to life.
Baron Victor Frankenstein (Cushing) is housed at an insane asylum where he has been made a surgeon at the asylum, and has a number of privileges, as he holds secret information on Adolf Klauss, the asylum's corrupt and perverted director (John Stratton). The Baron, under the alias of Dr. Carl Victor, uses his position to continue his experiments in the creation of man.
When a hot air balloon crashes on a remote and uncharted island, the four balloonists and their dog Melvin are captured by a pair of drunken old pirates who take them to the hilltop laboratory home of Dr. Frankenstein's modern-day descendant Sheila Frankenstein (Katherine Victor) who is carrying on the family tradition by turning shipwrecked sailors into pre-programmed bloodless, black-garbed zombies who must wear sunglasses to protect their weird white eyes from light.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) is a physician lecturer at an American medical school and engaged to the tightly wound socialite Elizabeth (Madeline Kahn). He becomes exasperated when anyone brings up the subject of his grandfather, the infamous mad scientist. To disassociate himself from his forebear, Frederick insists that his surname is pronounced "Fronkensteen."
The film centers around the life of Victor Frankenstein. After creating the monster together with his partner Zuckel, the monster attacks the assistant and falls from a cliff. Assuming the monster is dead, Victor returns to his wife Elizabeth and daughter Emily. A police inspector named Bellbeau investigates some mysterious mutilations killings, and Victor is blackmailed by his former assistant, who lost an eye in his fight with the monster.
After the events of The Wolf Man and Ghost of Frankenstein, a duo of graverobbers break into the Talbot family crypt to rob the grave of Larry Talbot (the "Wolf Man" (Lon Chaney, Jr.)), of valuables buried with him, on the night of a full moon. During the grave robbery, the graverobbers remove the Wolfsbane buried with him and he is awakened from death by the full moon shining down on his uncovered body, and kills one of them. Seeking a cure for the curse that causes him to transform into a werewolf with every full moon, Talbot leaves Britain and goes to the remains of Frankenstein's castle, as he hopes to find there the notes of Dr. Ludwig Frankenstein so he might learn how to permanently end his own life through scientific means.
The prologue is set in Nazi Germany during the final days of World War II. A Kriegsmarine Officer, flanked by three Commandos, barges into the laboratory of a Dr. Riesendorf with orders to seize the immortal heart of the Frankenstein Monster, on which Riesendorf is busy experimenting. The heart is summarily transported by U-Boat to be passed off to their Japanese allies via the Atlantic. In the Indian Ocean, off the Maldives, the U-Boat meets up with a Japanese Imperial Navy submarine to make the exchange. They are sighted by an Allied Forces scout plane and bombed, but not before the Kriegsmarine pass the heart (contained in a locked chest) to the Japanese, who take it back to Hiroshima for further experimentation. But just as the experiments are about to begin, Hiroshima is bombed by the Allied Forces, and the heart and the experiments vanish in the atomic fireball.
The film takes place on an undisclosed island on a foggy, winter day. Victor Frankenstein and his bride, Elizabeth, are set to be married by a priest who is rowed in on a small raft. But all is not well on the day of these young lovers’ wedding: The ceremony is clearly being conducted in secret, and Victor and Elizabeth are under the protection of seven well-armed mercenaries. All parties soon find themselves being stalked by a seemingly supernatural enemy of great physical strength that dwells in the woods surrounding the small chapel...a monster who kills with swiftness and purpose. As the slaughter escalates and the characters begin to die one by one at the hands of this mysterious Creature, Victor is forced to confess the unholy crimes he committed that has placed himself and the others in this deadly predicament. Meanwhile, as each character faces certain death, the beast’s ultimate target reveals itself not to be Victor, but his bride.
During World War II, Russian soldiers on a reconnaissance mission receive a distress call that would lead them further into Germany. The message seems to repeat without any response to their queries, and at the same time that they begin to receive the message, they lose radio contact with their command. Although the others are dubious about the existence of other Russians in the area, Sgt. Novikov orders them to investigate. Dmitri, a Soviet propagandist who is filming the mission, interviews the soldiers and documents the proceedings. As they draw closer to the designated coordinates, Dmitri takes an interest in and films several odd occurrences, such as unexplained dead Nazis, a burnt convent full of massacred nuns and strange machinery. When the soldiers arrive at their destination, they find an abandoned church guarded by an undead person with metal implants; the film calls these creatures zombots in the credits. The zombot kills Sgt. Novikov, and, after they destroy the zombot, Sergei takes charge. The hotheaded Vassili challenges his authority, but the others back Sergei.
Castle Frankenstein has been empty for years and the local council is planning to repossess it, when the Frankenstein family return, seeking to find hidden treasure, and to re-animate the Frankenstein monster.
Victor Frankenstein (played by Barret Oliver) is a young boy who creates movies starring his dog, Sparky (a Bull Terrier, whose name is a play on the use of electricity in the film). After Sparky is hit by a car, Victor learns at school about electrical impulses in muscles and is inspired to bring his pet back to life. He creates elaborate machines which bring down a bolt of lightning that revives the dog. While Victor is pleased, his neighbors are terrified by the animal, and when the Frankensteins decide to introduce the revitalized Sparky to them they become angry and terrified.
Young filmmaker and scientist Victor Frankenstein lives with his parents, Edward and Susan Frankenstein, and his beloved dog, Sparky, in the quiet town of New Holland. Victor's intelligence is recognized by his classmates at school, his somber next-door neighbor, Elsa Van Helsing, mischievous, Igor-like Edgar "E" Gore, obese and gullible Bob, overconfident Toshiaki, creepy Nassor, and an eccentric girl nicknamed Weird Girl, but communicates little with them due to his relationship with his dog. Concerned with his son's isolation, Victor's father encourages him to take up baseball and make achievements outside of science. Victor hits a home run at his first game, but Sparky, pursuing the ball, is struck by a car and killed.
In 2009, the super-wealthy achieve immortality by hiring "bonejackers", mercenaries equipped with time travel devices, to snatch people from the past, just prior to the moment of their deaths, for use as substitute bodies. Those who escape are known as "freejacks" and are considered less than human under the law. In this dystopian future, most people suffer from poor physical health as a result of rampant drug use and environmental pollution, making them unattractive as replacement bodies.
In 2029, the world is interconnected by a vast electronic network that permeates every aspect of life. Much of humanity has access to this network through cybernetic bodies, or "shells", which possess their consciousness and can give them superhuman abilities.