The scientist Victor Frankenstein, obsessed with possessing the secrets of life, creates a new being from the bodies of the dead. But his creature is a twisted, gruesome parody of a man who, rejected for his monstrous appearance, sets out to destroy his maker.

Pip, a young orphan, has his life altered by a strange chain of events - a terrifying graveside encounter with an escaped prisoner; a visit to a black-hearted old woman and a beautiful girl; an unexpected fortune from a secret donor. Escaping his poor background for London, however, he finds that he cannot run away from who he really is.

After the brutal care of the workhouse, the orphan Oliver Twist falls into the more welcoming arms of a den of thieves. But the sinister Fagin's grip is not light, and life in the underworld where Oliver now finds himself often ends in a noose...