 The streets of Detroit are rain-slickened and littered with filth, smoky fires burn in the distance, and daylight never seems to come in the industrial slum where a street waif named Sarah lives, and where her two best friends, rock star Eric Draven and his fiancee Shelley Webster, are murdered. It is said that when a man dies wrongfully, a crow may bring him back to life to seek vengeance upon his killers. A year after Eric and Shelley have been laid to rest, Eric returns from the grave, clawing his way up from the ground. He s met by a crow perched on his headstone. The crow is Eric s guide between the worlds of the living and the dead. Eric, after painting his face, prowls the streets in search of the vicious lowlifes who killed he and Shelley. The killers are a group of men known as T-Bird, Skank, Tin Tin, and Funboy. Wrapped in patent leather and chrome, his hair an unruly nest, the invincible Eric starts killing them one by one. Eric s search for vengeance leads to Top Dollar, the local crime boss who masterminded Eric and Shelley s murders. Top Dollar and his lover Myca rule the slums. Eric crosses paths with Sarah and good cop Albrecht. Top Dollar kidnaps Sarah, and then Myca captures the crow, sapping Eric s unnatural powers. They hole up in a gothic church, and Eric must use the last of his strength to rescue Sarah from Myca and Top Dollar.