Patrick Swayze portrays a death row inmate that gets a new trial, when a witness testifies that he wasn't the killer of his wife several years earlier. He is re-tried and found not guilty, but this is just the beginning.
He becomes a successful writer, and one of the women that recorded a taped message would later frame him for the murders that occur on film. He is eventually stalked, a la Clint Eastwood in Play Misty For Me (1971), but in this film, he is framed and later vows to find the real killer.
The scene in the apartment near the film's end is horrifying, where a meat cleaver and a handgun are present, which makes this film like a Friday the 13th or Nightmare on Elm Street flick, and one that would view this particular scene would remember it for eternity.