I put off watching this movie for a long time, seeing how director Russell Mulcahy has made a number of stinkers over the years, and that actor Christopher Lambert hasn't exactly impressed me with his acting over the same period of time. (The fact that he co-wrote the story of this movie didn't exactly give me much hope.) To be sure, this movie is not perfect. The visual look of the movie is too dark at times, and there is a mysterious fog in many scenes (even indoors) that looks out of place. Some of the clues that Lambert's character uncovers come out of nowhere, seemingly because the screenwriters couldn't figure out how the hero would uncover them at the same time as the audience. The subplot about the hero's loss of his son is eventually forgotten and never brought up again. And Lambert, except for one crying sequence, is pretty stiff and unemotional.
Despite those things, and a few other nitpicks, I still found enough to enjoy in this movie. The atmosphere of the movie is very good, bleak, dark, and horrifying. Murder is shown to be definitely not very pleasant. The progression of the investigation is very easy to follow, unlike some other murder investigation movies. The actor playing the killer is really creepy. And I can't say that at any point I was bored. So if you come across this on cable, give it a try.