Jones Transfer is in the midst of stealing a Toshiba stereo when he is interrupted by a tall sullen figure with dark slashes over his eyes and a dark sinister grin across his cheeks. The figure seems overcome with madness, speaking disjointly, and informs Mr. Jones that Shelby The Giant told him that Jones would know where to find the members of T-Bird's gang. At first Mr. Jones is hesitant to rat on his fellow street thugs, but after the figure threatens to cut off his fingers and toes, Mr. Jones begins to tell what he knows.
The figure is now on a train, but he seems different, happier, and his face looks different. He watches a horse running along the train, but then a nightmarish vision, The figure watches in horror as the horse runs into barbed wire, becoming tangled. The Crow, sitting on the back of a chair tells the figure that he shouldn't have looked. At that moment a skeletal cowboy then walks up, asking the figure for his ticket.
The Figure now walks across dark, haunted city streets, walks to a condemned two story suburban home. Inside he looks out of a large window, watching the rain as he begins to remember, he remembers gunshots, a girl crying, sobbing and begging. He could not help her, but now he cannot remember why. He remembers hearing names, Tin Tin, Fun Boy, T-Bird, Top Dollar, and Tom Tom.
A gangster named Ratso meets up with two fellow gangsters, Fat Eddie and Tin Tin. Ratso wishes to sell Tin Tin a 38 calibre, non-traceable gun. To test it out Tin Tin at random kills an elderly woman named Bea who owns a prized cat.
In an Alley the figure, the mad man with the dark slashes across his eyes and mouth, confronts Tin Tin, who shoots the figure in the head, but at that same moment the sullen man with the grin shoots Tin Tin in the arm. He reminds Tin Tin of who he is, and it is revealed that this haunted figure is named Eric. Eric now remembers the sobbing girl who he could not help, he remembers their love for each other, and he kills Tin Tin who raped her.
Eric, now back home, weeps as he looks at pictures of him and the woman he could not save, the woman he loved. He envisions himself approaching barbed wire and coming face to face with Death. He now sees himself, fallen across a road, his skull cracked open leaking a puddle of blood on the asphalt, The Crow telling him don't look.
Eric drops in to pay his respects to Top Dollar, who, after Eric dispatches everyone else in the room, tries to bargain for his life with drugs. Eric has Top Dollar remember, remember a '71 Plymouth, and a girl, her name was Shelly. After Top Dollar remembers, Eric shoots him dead. Eric then remembers a day in which Shelly was working on a puzzle, but having trouble finding all of the pieces, so she instead wanted to dance with Eric, but he told her that he didn't know how, she begged him, & he did, falling on the floor in the process. He then promised her that he would one day learn how to dance for her.
Eric walks down the hall of the apartments which the elderly woman Bea lived, all of the cats fallowing him, especially her prised cat. Eric takes the cat home, and with a bouquet of flowers, and a champagne bottle, presents it as an anniversary present to Shelly, presents it in tears while sitting alone in the house. He remembers the day he proposed to Shelly while they were re-painting the house, and fixing it up, her so surprised in joy, that she knocks over the latters they are on, and sings. Eric remembers holding her naked body & smiling, but his memory is violently interrupted as The Crow tells him not to look and the Skull Cowboy shoots Shelly in the head, reminding Eric of what happened to her, and why he is here.
Reminded of his mission, Eric now begins to train and get in shape for his battles ahead, and finds Tom Tom and Skank who are killing another man for having ratted on them. Eric quickly cuts off Skanks head with a sword before cutting off Tom Tom's feet. He speaks with Tom Tom of the night him & Shelly were killed as Tom Tom slowly dies, Tom Tom divulging what they did with the engagement ring Eric had given Shelly.
Eric crashes in on "Gideon's Pawn" Shop, confronts the owner, Gideon, and kills him while finding the ring. He sets a timed gas bomb, and as he begins to leave, is confronted by officer Bernard Albrect. Eric speaks to Albrect about how the officer's wife, whom he is separated with, misses him, and is awaiting for him to return to her and the marriage. Eric now tells the officer of the timed bomb, and then vanishes. Albrect makes it to a phone and messages his Captain, Hook, as the pawn shop explodes. Captain Hook goes to his police records and pulls out the folder on Eric, and throws it in the trash saying that perhaps God has some wisdom after all.
Eric now remembers a Christmas him and Shelly spent together, them watching It's A Wonderful Life, and his gift to her being the new house with eighteen windows.
While on his way to Fun Boy's apartment, Eric comes across a young girl, Sherri, who is waiting for her mother, Sandy, which is sleeping with Fun Boy in exchange for morphine. Because Sherri's name reminds Eric of Shelly, he gives her Shelly's ring on a chain, the little girl brought to tears because no one else had ever given her a gift before. Eric tells the girl he is going to fetch her mother.
Eric breaks into Fun Boy's and reminds Sandy of her worth to her daughter, telling her that his friends, the cats, will lead her out of the building. Eric now tells Fun Boy to meet him in the Gin Mill at midnight, to bring some friends, and to worry.
Back at his home, Eric in his mind re-lives him and Shelly making love, and is emotionally torn apart from the loss of her, The Crow continuing to warn him against focusing on these thoughts. Eric then arrives at the Gin Mill and kills all of Fun Boy's friends, asking him to fetch T-Bird and have them meet within one hour on the road by the field near the old factory. Eric during this hour returns home to become lost in and dwell on thoughts of him and Shelly. He in his mourning begins to cut himself with a straight razor in self mutilation.
Eric now remembers the day him and Shelly spent at the beach after the engagement, the long ride home, on the long, lonely road surrounded by a field, and the memory he fears the most. The '71 Plymouth Barracuda throws a rod, breaking down onto the side of the road. A T-Bird drives up full of five thugs high on rock cocaine, they stop and get out of the car, teasing the couple, sinisterly asking if they can help out. They then shoot Eric twice in the head, the second shot so close it lights Eric's hair on fire. The shots blow out one of Eric's irises and fractures his skull across the bridge of the nose. He is still alive, but paralysed, forced to listen as the woman he loves cries and begs her tormentors to stop, forced to watch as they savagely violate, rape, and beat her, yet he is unable to do anything to stop it, unable to help save her. The next thing he remembers is being in a hospital as Captain Hook stands over him, apologizing to him for all that he has went through, telling Eric that his fiancee is dead, and that Eric, according to the doctors, is brain dead. Just as he is about to leave, Eric speaks, telling Hook that The Crow said Don't Look. Eric is then wheeled back into surgery where some doctors wonder whether this is a practice exercise on someone who is already dead. The other doctors tell them to stop playing around, that this is serious. They try and recover some of his vertebrae, and also analyse the wounds to his eye, skull, and nose, but they start to lose him, and as he dies The Crow comes to him and chastises him for dwelling on the memories of all of this, reminding Eric that they have work to do.
Eric sits in their old house, rain pouring down outside the windows. He remembers the fun they had that day on the beach, he wanders up the stairs and to a higher story window, leaning against the glass. He then smashes through the window, declaring that he is coming home to Shelly. Eric now remembers an August night, he came home from work to find Shelly in a wedding dress. He is excited to see that she has finally picked out a dress she likes. They then take a bath together while drinking a two dollar bottle of Andre champagne. While in the bath she asks him what is the one thing he truly wants, he answers that she is all he wants, he then asks her & she answers that she wants to make love to him all night under Christmas tree lights. He then says that Christmas is 5 months away, but she leads him out of the bath, to their bedroom, which is decorated with Christmas lights all over the walls.
Eric, his arms dripping in blood from self mutilation, tells the cat Gabriel that it is time he goes. Eric then envisions himself dancing with death who is calling him to come home, 'soon' he reminds her. Eric now remembers him and Shelly kissing in the rain, & he cries into a pillow as he remembers her telling him that they could have made beautiful babies together. Eric reaches out to the sky with her torn, blood stained arms, and then wraps up his wounds with electrical tape. He then stretches, & loads his guns, preparing for this final battle. He stops for a moment, picking up a dried rose & reflecting on back when it was new and how Shelly held it. He then throws all of their stuff into the fire place and lights the whole house on fire.
Eric goes to Sherri, to tell her goodbye as he had promised he would do earlier when he met her outside of Fun Boy's. She tells Eric that she understands that he has to go, but that it makes her heart hurt. He then apologizes to her for all that has happened to her, and all that will happen to her, but that he does truly believe one day things will get better. At the burning house an officer finds Gabriel on the lawn, with a red ribbon around it's neck and an attached letter addressed to Captain Hook. It says that Eric is giving the cat to him, but that it turns out Gabriel is actually a female, and for him to expect kittens in six weeks, as well as the cat needs a flea collar. Hook, who hates cats, begrudgingly takes the cat home. Officer Albrect also comes across a letter from Eric, this one asking him to look after Sherri, that seeing her will break his heart. Albrect then sets out to find her.
Fun Boy tries to tell T-Bird about Eric & what happened at the Gin Mill, but T-Bird does not believe him. Fun Boy then goes into the kitchen to shoot up drugs, Eric however appears, injects himself with some of Fun Boy's morphine, and carves a crown of thorns into his own chest. Eric in keeping his promise to Fun Boy from their last encounter, allows Fun Boy to die of a morphine overdose. Eric then goes up stairs and kills everyone else in the building with the exception of a young man named Two-Tone who Eric advises to leave that life behind. T-Bird and the fingerless Shelby The Giant sit in T-Birds car telling jokes, as they are doing this they hear sounds on the roof which they believe to be rain, but in actuality is Eric who seconds later through the roof shoots Shelby in the head. T-Birds other men, who are gathered outside around the car then get into a huge brawl with Eric, shooting & stabbing him many times, Eric just brushing them off & slaughtering them. T-Bird then starts the car and heads down a road, a road he doesn't remember, but Eric does, it is the road where this all began. Eric finds in the alley his old green '71 Plymouth Barracuda with license plates which read 'Godzilla'. As T-Bird speeds down the road, persuade closely by Eric, T-Bird, ever increasing his speed, sees flash before him a big black Crow flying straight into his wind shield. T-Bird's car swerves and flips several times, throwing him out of the vehicle, and then landing on his legs, pinning him to the ground. Eric then gets out of his car, approaches T-Bird, and pulls out a hammer.
Eric now find himself walking through the forest of his mind. It is no longer raining, but he is still here and he does not know why. The Crow tells Eric that is because this was not about justice or revenge, it was about forgiveness. Eric doesn't understand, so The Crow continues to explain that it is about Eric forgiving himself for being unable to save Shelly, letting go of it, and understanding that it is not his fault, that there was nothing he could have done. Eric tells The Crow that he does not know how to forgive himself. At that moment the horse entangled in the barbed wire reappears in front of Eric's face, Eric cries for The Crow to stop all of this, but The Crow tells Eric it is up to himself. Eric then takes a gun and shoots the horse in the head, killing it, and declaring that this is Hell. The Crow tells Eric that the next time he sees The Lady in Black, who happens to be Death, that he is to not walk away from her. The train 'Cadavre Exquis' arrives and the Skull Cowboy complements Eric on the nice shot.
In the snow covered cemetery Eric approaches Shelly's grave. He tells her he is coming home, remembers them kissing on the beach, and declares it is forever now, he then kisses Death, and shoots himself in the head. A statue of an angel covering it's eyes and then weeping.
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