The film includes two interpretations of the ABBA song "SOS" - one by the film's composer Clint Mansell and the other by Portishead. "SOS" was released in 1975. The same year as the novel "High-Rise" JG Ballard.
In the opening shot, Laing is using a record player. It is a very special, very rare player known as a Transcriptors Reference Turntable, and the same owned by Alex in A Clockwork Orange (arguably made famous by that film). This is likely another homage to that movie.
High-Rise (2015) had been a stalled passion project for producer Jeremy Thomas for decades. It was once deemed "unfilmable."
Tom Hiddleston spent time with a forensic pathologist to prepare for his role since his character, Dr. Robert Laing, is a physiologist.