- [Victor Frankenstein tells Sir Malcolm where he shall plant his flag in medical science]
- Dr. Victor Frankenstein: There is only one worthy goal for scientific exploration: piercing the tissue that separates life from death. 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.
- Sir Malcolm: You have the soul of a poet, sir.
- Dr. Victor Frankenstein: And the bank account to match.
- [Vanessa Ives tells Ethan Chandler what she thinks of him]
- Vanessa Ives: I have a need for a gentleman who's comfortable with firearms, and not hesitant to engage in dangerous endeavors. Or was that all a tall tale as well?
- Ethan Chandler: What do you think?
- Vanessa Ives: 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.
- [Sir Malcolm asks Victor Frankenstein to join his group]
- Dr. Victor Frankenstein: I've only one other question: why me?
- Sir Malcolm: Because you were unafraid to pull back the skin and look beneath.
- [Ethan Chandler questions Sir Malcolm and Vanessa Ives after witness the undead vampires]
- Ethan Chandler: Who the fuck are you people?
- [Sir Malcolm describes what he felt when seeing Mina visit him in the night]
- Sir Malcolm: 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 at 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're no longer the hunter, you are the prey.
- [Sir Malcolm tells Ethan Chandler to not be amazed on what he will see during the night work]
- Ethan Chandler: One - One minute. What're we doing here?
- Sir Malcolm: 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.
- [Victor Frankenstein tells Sir Malcolm that his idea of what science he knows is for only knowledge itself]
- Dr. Victor Frankenstein: I seek the truth.
- Sir Malcolm: Ah, you're a very young man. I've long since learned that truth is mutable.
- Dr. Victor Frankenstein: Perhaps we view science differently.
- Sir Malcolm: Do we?
- Dr. Victor Frankenstein: I would never chart a river or scale a peak to take its measure or plant a flag. There's no point. It's solipsistic self-aggrandizement. So too those scientists who study the planets seeking astronomical enlightenment for its own sake. The botanist studying the variegation of an Amazonian fern. The zoologist caught up in an endless fascination of an Adder's coils. And for what? Knowledge for itself alone? The elation of discovery? Plant your flag on the truth?
- [Victor Frankenstein gives his prognosis of the dead master vampire]
- Dr. Victor Frankenstein: Well, it would appear you have an Egyptian man of no particular age, who, at some point in his indeterminate lifespan, decided to sharpen his teeth, cover himself in hieroglyphics and grow an exoskeleton. Or you have something else altogether.
- [Vanessa Ives gives Ethan Chandler an explanation for the night work]
- Vanessa Ives: 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?
- Ethan Chandler: Yes.
- Vanessa Ives: That's where we were last night. Where some unfortunate souls are cursed to live always. If you believe in curses, that is.
- [Vanessa Ives meets Ethan Chandler for the first time]
- Vanessa Ives: 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.
- Ethan Chandler: [Ethan smiles] What we call a tall tale, darlin'.
- Vanessa Ives: Exceedingly tall.
- Ethan Chandler: Vice of my nation. We're storytellers.
- [Vanessa Ives asks Ethan Chandler to pick a tarot card for her]
- Vanessa Ives: Before you go, one last task, if you'll indulge me. Pick a card.
- Vanessa Ives: [Mr. Chandler reaches to pick a card] No, no, not like that. Not impulsively. Not without thought. Let them work on you. Look into my eyes. Believe.
- [Mr. Chandler chooses, as Vanessa Ives reveals 'The Lovers' card]
- [last lines]
- Dr. Victor Frankenstein: [Victor shivers in the dark when he see's his undead monster walk up to him, reaching out to touch his face] Can you hear?
- Dr. Victor Frankenstein: [as the creature gasps before smiling] My name... is Victor Frankenstein.
- Dr. Victor Frankenstein: There is only one worthy goal for scientific exploration. Piercing the tissue that separates life from death.
- [first lines]
- 7 Year Old Girl: [the 7 year old girl wakes up after she hears something take away her mother] Mum?
- 7 Year Old Girl: [the little girl walks down the creaky steps calling out] Mum? Mum?
- [when the little girl screams at the shattered window]
- [Vanessa Ives watches Ethan Chandler's 'Sharpest Shooting Gun Slinger of the West' exhibition]
- Ethan Chandler: [shooting with precision] Just about then, I seen big old crazy horse himself, riding up with his band of bloodthirsty Sioux killers.
- Ethan Chandler: [firing aimlessly to the pottery] General Custer gave the word, his blonde 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.
- Ethan Chandler: [continuing to fire without missing] One of the survivors who lived to bring you this tale of pluck and daring. Thanks for coming out today and I hope that I have found some favor among you estimable gentlemen... and ladies.
- [Mr. Chandler then shoots the feathers off a woman's hat]
- [Ethan Chandler finishes having sex with a local London woman]
- Beautiful Young Woman: Will I see you again?
- Ethan Chandler: Would that I could. Show's heading off to Paris. So many details to attend to... you understand? The life of a theatrical gentleman is peripatetic, darlin'.
- Beautiful Young Woman: But I was under...
- Ethan Chandler: [Mr. Chandler forces his kiss on the beautiful woman] Just know that you've made my visit here truly memorable. I shall never forget you.
- Beautiful Young Woman: ...Perhaps you'd like to know my name then.
- [Vanessa Ives asks for some night work help as Ethan Chandler makes a joke]
- Vanessa Ives: I have a need for some night work.
- Ethan Chandler: Oh, honey, don't we all?
- [Vanessa Ives invites Ethan Chandler to join her on a nightly adventure]
- Vanessa Ives: The job's tonight.
- Ethan Chandler: Is it a murder?
- Vanessa Ives: Would it matter?
- Ethan Chandler: [Ethan smiles] One smile and I say yes.
- [as Vanessa Ives smiles]
- [Ethan Chandler meets Victor Frankenstein for the first time]
- Ethan Chandler: You're a man with a bloody knife like everybody else out there. So stop putting on airs.
- Dr. Victor Frankenstein: American?
- Ethan Chandler: You are clever.
- Dr. Victor Frankenstein: Do you know anything about electrical currents? Your country is making such strides as we labor in the dark ages of coal and peat. Have you any experience with principles and applications of galvanism?
- Ethan Chandler: Oh, the usual.
- [Victor Frankenstein examines the dead body of the master vampire]
- Dr. Victor Frankenstein: Lividity, null. Rigor mortis, null. Notable ocular hyperemia. Ocular reaction, null. Dental malformation, not naturally occurring due to the isotropy. Nature's rarely so neat, nature abhors symmetry. Trauma and penetration of the chest cavity through the manubrium 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 exocrine pores. Hand me that.
- Dr. Victor Frankenstein: [Victor uses a scalpel to cut into the flesh] Well, I know why the skin seems peculiar.
- Sir Malcolm: Why?
- Dr. Victor Frankenstein: Forceps? Because it isn't skin. Not as we know it. It's more like a... tensile exoskeleton, along the lines of an insect or crustacean. He must've been a hearty devil.
- Ethan Chandler: You're not kidding.
- [Inspector Granworthy and his photographer inspect the bloody crime scene]
- Inspector Granworthy: Carnage.
- Police Photographer: Sir?
- Inspector Granworthy: It's like a battlefield.
- [Vanessa Ives tells Ethan Chandler what kind of man he is]
- Vanessa Ives: Are you a wise man, Mr. Chandler?
- Ethan Chandler: Not especially.
- Vanessa Ives: A wise man would walk away from this house and make a concerted effort to forget everything that occurred last night. He would not look back.
- Ethan Chandler: That sounds like a warning.
- Vanessa Ives: 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.
- Ethan Chandler: And what kind is that?
- Vanessa Ives: A man of great violence and hidden depths. You play your role well, Mr. Chandler, but this is not who you are.
- [Vanessa Ives bids Ethan Chandler farewell when he doesn't take up her offer to join her and Sir Malcolm]
- Vanessa Ives: 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.
- Ethan Chandler: And what do you seek to escape?
- Vanessa Ives: Perhaps the same thing you do. We all have our curses, don't we? Good day, Mr. Chandler.
- Ethan Chandler: Miss Ives.
- [Vanessa Ives enters Ferdinand Lyle's office when seeing his glass case of beetles]
- Vanessa Ives: What are these?
- Ferdinand Lyle: Oh, Carrion beetles. We employ them when the usual solvents are deemed too abrasive. They eat the flesh, don't you know. Sorry, my dear, it's a bit ghoulish to the lay-person.
- Vanessa Ives: Very exotic. Where do they come from?
- Ferdinand Lyle: Actually, Waveney, in Suffolk.
- Vanessa Ives: Not exotic at all.
- [Ferdinand Lyle tells Sir Malcolm and Vanessa Ives about the non-urgency of the Egyptians]
- Sir Malcolm: This is a matter of some urgency.
- Ferdinand Lyle: 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 being eaten by little Persian boys, doesn't it? So, I shall see you Friday next.
- [Ferdinand Lyle asks Sir Malcolm if he knows the source of the Egyptian hieroglyphics he carries]
- Ferdinand Lyle: I do assume you know the source of the writing?
- Sir Malcolm: No.
- Ferdinand Lyle: It's from the Egyptian 'Book of the Dead.'
- [Sir Malcolm invites Victor Frankenstein to join him on an adventure]
- Dr. Victor Frankenstein: What are you after?
- Sir Malcolm: I'm trying to rescue my daughter. To save her, I would murder the world. Join me, Doctor. With me you'll behold terrible wonders.
- Dr. Victor Frankenstein: And how much of the world will we have to murder?
- Sir Malcolm: Do you care?
- Sir Malcolm Murray: You're 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.