The main protagonist is a cliche noir style detective named Coyle whose love interest is a typical spunky female reporter named grace.
Coyle is investigating a series of homicides where the bodies are drained of blood. The supernatural is real but most don't know about it and local ruler of the supernatural community is a vampire named Crispin Grimes who may or may not be Dracula. Crispin apparently runs major corporations and a local nightclub called House of Frankenstein.
Crispin decides to find The Frankenstein Monster (who, according to Mary Shelley's novel, disappeared into the North Pole) to put him on display in his night club. That's right, he funds a several million dollar expedition in order to ... put the Frankenstein Monster on display in his night club...
Crispin is perpetually bored and looking for something that makes eternity worth it and so he's started the dangerous game of deliberately being sloppy with his kills
Meanwhile Grace, the reporter, has nicknamed the killer "The Raptor" because... you know... all blood drained bodies have to be named after a dinosaur popularized in Jurassic Park a few years earlier...
Grace gets attacked and bitten by a werewolf who works for Grimes. at first Grimes wants the werewolf to kill Grace because he had not given him permission to make creatures but then Crispin decides his original werewolf is a loose canon and kills him instead while developing a crush on Grace.
The Frankenstein Monster is found and shipped back to Crispin, whose head scientist tells him that the creature might actually still be alive though he is in a block of ice. In fact he uses the phrase "undead" which gets Crispin's attention.
Behind Crispin Grime's back the scientist thaws the creature and believes he was mistaken, that the creature is actually dead so he puts him in a cooler vault and walks away. Moments later the creature wakes up, breaks loose and wanders the streets.
Now here's where it's a little strange. The backstory for him indicates that the events of the novel happened however this creature is inarticulate while trying to take some shoes from a shoe store. He is chased by police but a raggedy old war vet named Armando takes him in and starts to teach him and he learns relatively fast.
Eventually the vampire finds The Frankenstein Monster and appears to him as a giant, bad effects, blue demon-like form and says in a gutteral voice "Come! We are brothers!" Needless to say the Frankenstein monster takes exception to this and resists him. Armando tries to defend him but the demon-vampire punches a hole through his chest. The vampire flees. The police find the Frankenstein monster crying over Armand's body, which for some reason, makes them decide that not only is he Armando's killer but he has to be "The Raptor" because... you know... punching through a man's chest is exactly like bodies being found drained of blood...
While at police headquarters the Frankenstein Monster is interrogated and tells them who and what he really is. Naturally he is not believed so a police psychiatrist and a doctor are called in to examine him.
Meanwhile C. C. H. Pounder (Mrs. Frederick's from Warehouse 13) keeps calling the police station insisting that the killer is actually a vampire. Needless to say no one believes her...
Soon the police department is faced with the very weird realization that the Frankenstein monster does not have a heartbeat and seems to be running on electricity. One of the characters even says sardonically "Like a choo choo."
The scientist who thawed the Frankenstein monster decides to get him out of the hospital before his own boss, Crispin can find him. So he puts the creature in a lab coat and tries to smuggle him out. Because.. You know... that would totally work when trying to hide a serial killer suspect who looks like a depiction of the Freakin' Frankenstein monster!
Unfortunately Crispin catches them and manages to capture both the Frankenstein Monster and Grace. Crispin attempts to seduce Grace while keeping the Frankenstein monster chained up. Grace attempts to escape and the Frankenstein Monster (who is becoming a lot more clever than the vampire) takes the opportunity to pretend he's on Crispin's side. Crispin is still not entirely convinced so he had the Frankenstein Monster fitted with a sort of shock collar device that jolts him if he tries to disobey. Electricity does not hurt the Frankenstein monster but apparently the vampire did not consider this so the creature pretends it hurts him and plays along just so he can get out of there and find Grace's boyfriend, Detective Coyle.
Coyle has teemed up with C. C. H. Pounder's character, who is pretty much a female Abraham Van Helsing. She believes that all vampires are actually fallen angels. "That's why they have wings." ...Wha?! At least, like traditional Dracula, Crispin can walk in the sun, he just doesn't like it. But fallen angel? No. Just no. That's not a vampire. That's a demon. Also if he's that ancient why is he this incompetent and having this many issues with being immortal now?
With the Frankenstein Monster's help they go to confront Grimes. In the process C. C. H. Pounder gets knocked out of a helicopter and appears to die. But it's okay because she was accidentally scratched by Grace so she's a werewolf now...
Coyle and the Frankenstein monster face off against the vampire. Grace deliberately takes her wolf form and heads for Coyle. This part is where it gets really stupid. Coyle shoots Grace with a silver bullet (even though it was apparent she was deliberately in wolf form and therefor in full control of her actions). He then whisks her out of there to a hospital where he holds doctors at gunpoint to force them to revive her. She flatlines in wolf form, goes back to human form, and then they defibrillator (a common mistake but that's not how those machines work). And apparently this is all you need to do in order to cure someone of werewolfism.
Grace gets taken by Grimes... again. There's another chase. This time several of the police force walk off the job, leaving behind their badges, to nobly help Coyle, and defy their boss because their skeptical Police Chief is an idiot who is still dismissive of the supernatural even after the demon sightings, blood drained body, guy they had in custody who had no heart beat and ran on electricity who claimed to be the Frankenstein monster, and the DNA proof that werewolves exist (which, yes, they do obtain).
Crispin figures out that Grace is no longer a werewolf (which apparently are quasi-immortal in this mythos) and he tells her "You have fifteen years before you look old" (Note: the actress was in her twenties. Whay to insult the thirty somethings watching!) And as fire blazes below in the night club while he's there in his office lounge loft with her he asks her "Why!? Why would you want to grow old?" To which she says in a dramatic, teary eyed response (which was apparently meant to be meaningful) "Because I can!" Devastated the vampire appears to kill himself (he apparently fakes his death as revealed near the end).
Coyle gets Grace. The Frankenstein Monster ships himself back to the North Pole and it's revealed that C. C. H. Pounder's relatively useless Van Helsing-esque character is alive and probably a werewolf (and this was about six years before the Van Helsing movie was made with a similar ending, also made through NBC / Universal).
This was more or less a contemporary first attempt at what would later become Van Helsing (2004 movie). And I can't decide which one is worse...
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