Shadow Chasers features strait-laced British anthropologist Jonathan MacKensie, who works for the fictional Georgetown Institute Paranormal Research Unit (PRU). MacKenzie's department head, Dr. Julianna Moorhouse, withholds a research grant to force him into investigating a supposed "haunting" involving a teenage boy. He is paired with flamboyant tabloid reporter Edgar "Benny" Benedek to reduce the length of the investigation, over Moorhouse's objections.