Advertisements for the movie were cancelled in Wisconsin due to the Dahmer killings.
The stunt double for Jeff Fahey almost died during the car crash scene when the force of the rear-end collision caused him to be ejected 50 feet into the air without a harness. Fortunately, he wasn't injured and the shot made final cut.
The film is very similar to a 1971 episode of Wo alle Wege enden (1969) titled, "The Hand of Borgus Weems".
This is, in fact, a very loose adaptation of a French novel which had sold very well in English translation over 25 years previously. It had been announced as a Hollywood project (with a screenplay by David Newman and Robert Benton) several times in the late 1960s and early 1970s.