When Frank Castle's family is murdered by criminals, he wages war on crime as a vigilante assassin known only as the Punisher.

A murderous TV repairman, Horace Pinker is killing people in a small town left, right and center. He eventually finds the home of Lt. Parker, who is investigating his crimes, and savagely murders Parker's wife, son and daughter. His other son, Jonathan has a strange connection to Pinker through his dreams, and he directs his father to Pinker's business, where a small group of officers enter. Pinker escapes in a horrific spree, killing four officers and then targeting Jonathan's girlfriend, Alison. Another dream leads Jonathan and his dad to a residence where they catch Pinker in in the act of kidnapping. Pinker is arrested after a fight with Jonathan and sentenced to die in the electric chair. When executed, Pinker - who supposedly had given his soul to the devil in exchange for the power to come back as an energy source - takes over people's bodies and continues committing murders...

A young man is confined in a mental hospital. Through a flashback we see that he was traumatized as a child, when he and his family were circus performers: he saw his father cut off the arms of his mother, a religious fanatic and leader of the heretical church of Santa Sangre ("Holy Blood"), and then commit suicide. Back in the present, he escapes and rejoins his surviving and armless mother. Against his will, he "becomes her arms" and the two undertake a grisly campaign of murder and revenge.