The film stars Liam Neeson as scientist Peyton Westlake, who is brutally attacked, disfigured, and left for dead by ruthless mobster Robert Durant (Larry Drake), after his girlfriend, attorney Julie Hastings (Frances McDormand), runs afoul of corrupt developer Louis Strack Jr. (Colin Friels).

An experimental treatment gives Westlake super-human strength and resilience, with the unintended side-effect of rendering him mentally unstable and borderline psychotic.

His girlfriend Julie Hastings discovers an incriminating document called the "Belisarius Memorandum" which proves her boss, real estate developer Louis Strack Jr., has been bribing members of the zoning commission.

However, vicious crime-boss Robert G. Durant and his armed thugs suddenly invade Westlake's lab searching for the "Belisarius Memorandum", which Julie had left behind.

Realizing Julie believes he's dead, he re-establishes his lab in an abandoned building, hoping to perfect his synthetic skin to fix his scarred face and body.

Additionally, Raimi's brother Ivan and director John Landis have cameos as hospital staff, with Jenny Agutter as the doctor treating Westlake's burns.

Sam Raimi had long desired to make a movie about pulp hero The Shadow, but Universal Pictures (who had been developing their adaptation since the early 80s) would not give him the rights to the character.

[7][8] Raimi then decided to create his own superhero, with the idea for "Darkman" developing from a short story he had written about a man who could change his face to become other people.

As the short story evolved into a 40-page treatment, the focus expanded to become about a man who had lost his own face, exploring how he would use a newfound face-changing ability to battle criminals as well as how relationships from before his disfigurement would be affected.

The story drew elements from other works — the scarred face and doomed love of The Phantom of the Opera, the tragedy of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and pulp figures like The Shadow.

[7] For the lead role of Darkman, Raimi was looking for someone who could suggest "a monster with the soul of a man," and could portray such emotional depth while wearing complex makeup.

[17] Initially, Raimi's longtime friend and collaborator Bruce Campbell was planned to play Darkman, but the studio did not consider him well known enough to carry the film.

[18] McDormand and Neeson demonstrated strong chemistry in auditions and worked closely in rehearsals, rewriting the three love scenes they had together after Westlake becomes Darkman.

'"[16] At the time, Drake was primarily known for his portrayal of the sympathetic character of Benny on L.A. Law, making his turn as a ruthless villain a dramatic departure.

[21] Universal did not want Darkman to look too much like the Evil Dead films,[7] a notion Raimi agreed with as he desired to portray the characters "as real human beings in extraordinary circumstances".

[10] McDormand, who at the time had primarily worked in theater, struggled with transitioning to movies and finding the ideal way to portray her character;[7] Raimi reflected that their disagreements were "healthy" even as their conception of the picture differed.

Studio executives were outraged by the deception, but as the negative had been cut and sound had been mixed the renegade edit proceeded as scheduled to critic reviews and the final release.

[7] Released by MCA Records on August 17, 1990, the soundtrack to Darkman was composed by Danny Elfman, who previously scored the music to Tim Burton's Batman in 1989.

The site's consensus states: "Gruesome and deliciously broad, Sam Raimi's Darkman bears the haunted soulfulness of gothic tragedy while packing the stylistic verve of onomatopoeia springing off a comic strip page.

[34] Terrence Rafferty of The New Yorker said, "Raimi works from inside the cheerfully violent adolescent-male sensibility of superhero comics, as if there were no higher style for a filmmaker to aspire to, and the absence of condescension is refreshing.

"[15] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone wrote: "Raimi's live-action comic book aims to deliver scares spiked with laughs.

"[35] USA Today gave the film three out of four stars, and wrote: "With good leads and a few bucks, he's come up with a high-octane revenge piece mentionable in the same breath as its predecessors.

"[36] Richard Corliss in Time said "Raimi isn't effective with his actors, and the dialogue lacks smart menace, but his canny visual sense carries many a scene.

"[37] Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "B" rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote: "The movie is full of jaunty, Grand Guignol touches (the main gangster enjoys snapping and collecting fingers), but Raimi's images also have a spectral, kinetic beauty.

"[38] In his review for The Washington Post, Joe Brown wrote: "Though Raimi seems to be trying to restrain himself, his giddily sick sense of humor still pops out all over the place – Darkman is a frenetic funhouse ride that has you laughing and screaming at the same time.

[41][42] Ian Nathan of Empire magazine said the film was "certainly not Raimi at his best, but some knowing genre nods and an array of great effects make up much of the deficit".

In November 2007, Sideshow Collectibles put up for pre-order a 1:4 scale "Premium" Format Figure version of Darkman that would be released in 3rd quarter 2008.

Over Pocket Books' four novels (The Hangman, The Price of Fear, The Gods of Hell, and In the Face of Death) Boyll further develops Darkman's character and how he deals with his new existence as an outcast individual with the ability to help others.

[citation needed] Ocean Software developed a video game adaptation of Darkman, released in 1991, for the NES and multiple other 8-bit home computers.

[54] That May, Raimi shared that Universal was considering a Darkman sequel and that a producer was attached to the project, but confessed his work on Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness was keeping him too busy to learn any more.