The Crow (1994) Ending Explained — Why were Eric and Shelly killed?
The Crow Plot Summary
The Crow is a 1994 gothic fantasy action movie, loosely based on the comic of the same name by James O’Barr. In it, we see the aftermath of the violent murder of two Detroit residents (Eric Draven and Shelly Webster) in their apartment on the night before Halloween, locally known as Devil’s Night. They were engaged and due to be married the next day.
A year later, Eric crawls out of his grave, risen from the dead by a supernatural crow to avenge his and Shelly’s murders. Stronger than before and unable to be injured, due to the otherworldly power that returned him to life, Eric hunts down their killers one by one and makes them pay for their crimes in blood.
Why were Eric and Shelly killed?
It is alluded to, but not necessarily confirmed, that Top Dollar owned Eric and Shelly’s apartment building. Regardless, what is clear is that he wanted all of the tenants of that building out. For reasons, the audience is never told. Shelly and Eric started a petition to protest this mass “eviction” and even got other tenants to sign it. Which unfortunately put a target on Eric and Shelley’s backs when trying to fight a crime boss who demanded that they leave.
It’s unclear if the four criminals sent to the apartment were ordered to kill Eric and Shelly, but they certainly didn’t try to avoid it. They were assaulting Shelly when Eric came home and they seriously wounded him immediately and later decided to finish him off. It’s unclear if they would have hunted him down had he not come home. With Shelly, they assaulted her, raped her, and left her gravely injured as a result. They didn’t seem particularly concerned if she survived or not. Whatever they were told to do, they murdered two innocent people without feeling any remorse at all for it.
Why was Officer Albrecht demoted?
At the beginning of the movie, when Shelly is being wheeled out to the ambulance, Detective Torres alludes to Officer Albrecht losing his “gold shield” for not sticking to police procedure. This likely means that Albrecht used to be a detective and got demoted. He responds to Torres in a way that indicates that he generally tends to care more about helping people than police procedures. Especially since he had Shelly moved without permission on the advice of the paramedics.
Later, in his apartment with Eric, Albrecht casually indicates that he got into further trouble with his bosses after Eric and Shelly were killed. As he tried to investigate their murders and find something he could use to go after their killers, but the remaining residents were too scared to talk to him, and his higher-ups at the precinct wanted him to drop the case as a pair of unsolved murders.
Why is Eric vulnerable during the church fight?
As they fled in their car from the massacre at the club, Top Dollar, Myca, and Grange have at least come up with a theory as to how Eric returned from the dead and what role the crow itself plays. So, when Eric arrives at the church to save a kidnapped Sarah, their first focus is to kill the bird.
Grange manages to wound the bird by shooting it but fails to get a good enough shot to kill it. This is, however, enough to take away Eric’s invulnerability, so that when Top Dollar shoots him he bleeds and doesn’t heal. He does not recover his ability to heal for the rest of this final act and instead has to fight injured.
How did Eric kill Top Dollar?
Back in Officer Albrecht’s apartment, Eric had been able to see the hours that Albrecht had spent at Shelly’s bedside in the hospital by touching his mind. More than that, Eric had somehow been able to feel Shelly’s pain and her death through those memories. He had a visibly strong reaction to the experience and had collapsed onto the floor, yelling for Albrecht not to touch him as he recovered from seeing and feeling those horrible hours.
In the final fight with Top Dollar on the church roof, Eric is disarmed, no longer invulnerable, and mortally wounded. Top Dollar is about to finish Eric off and take his eyes as trophies. Eric tells the villain that he has a gift for him. Something Eric doesn’t want anymore. Then he quickly grabs Top Dollar’s head and unloads the memory and the pain of Shelly’s death onto him. Overwhelming him and sending him falling off of the church roof onto one of the gargoyles. Giving the final kill to Shelly in a way.
What happens after Eric saves Sarah?
Once Top Dollar is dead and Eric saves Sarah from falling from the church roof, they go back down the bell tower stairs to find Albrecht injured, but still alive. Eric lights him a cigarette and he throws it away in disgust after one drag, swearing to give them up. Eric vanishes into the shadows after telling Sarah to stay with him until help comes.
Back out in the graveyard, Eric falls over exhausted onto Shelly’s grave as he quietly calls to her. It is then that the ghost of Shelly herself shows up to take Eric back to the Land of the Dead with her. They share a loving kiss, and in the next moment, they are gone. Eric’s grave is miraculously returned to its former undisturbed state. As though nothing ever happened.
After Sarah makes sure that Albrecht gets help from the paramedics, she heads back over to the graveyard to find Eric and Shelly’s graves undisturbed, aside from the crow perched on Eric’s headstone. It has Shelly’s ring in its beak, recovered from the church roof. After the bird releases the ring into Sarah’s hand, she says “Thanks.” and walks off. The next chapter of Sarah’s life can be seen in The Crow: City of Angels.