Lucas Hood is a thief who has served time in prison and who once betrayed his partners. After serving his sentence, he arrives in a small town in Pennsylvania named Banshee, where he deceitfully obtains the post of local sheriff. But that does not mean he has forgotten his criminal past or that he now serves the law. The gangsters he betrayed long ago still remember him and seek revenge. A hard confrontation looms between the newly minted sheriff and his former friends. The peace of the local population is disrupted, and murder follows murder as the sheriff begins to "restore order" in the town under his care.