Particle physicist Dr. Joe Buchanan (John Hurt) builds a device capable of vaporizing anything it touches, in hopes of ending war once and for all. Unfortunately, when he is testing the prototype, the device accidentally sends Buchanan hurtling backwards in time to a small Swiss village in the year 1817. There he meets kindred spirit Dr. Victor Frankenstein (Raul Julia), who is hard at work contending with the complications of his own misguided experiment.