The characters of Trish and Lucy were originally written for Jeffrey Thomas and his son Colin Thomas, friends of director Jason Torrey, and the characters were male. The Lucy character, even as the alternative male version, was written as autistic because Thomas's son Colin is autistic. The subject of autism interests Jason Torrey quite a bit, one of his three daughters was diagnosed as autistic in 2008. He explains, "I wanted to have a character that sees the killer in the act, but doesn't quite know how to articulate what was seen, but knows full well that danger is near and she and her mother must get somewhere safe. Having an autistic child myself I knew that I could write this in, make it plausible and have it work on both and intellectual and emotional level." The parts eventually went to a mother and daughter pair of local actors, this is why the characters were made female. But the two actresses ended up leaving the film before production began. The part of Lucy went to Popi Kapiris, who met the director at a cast and crew meet and greet they held on July 4th, 2010 (the day before principal photography began) and the part of Patricia was given to Sherrie Lemire.
Neal Howland, who plays Rick and is a stand in for The Killer, and Evan Howland, who plays The Killer in most of the scenes, are the director's half brothers. Sherrie Lemire, who plays Trish, is Torrey's wife and also the producer of the film.
The character of Nathan was originally written for executive producer J Schaefer to play. But when Larry Holden expressed an interest in being in the film producer Sherrie Lemire and director Jason Torrey gave the role to him instead.
Larry Holden agreed to act in the film after one conversation with producer Sherrie Lemire and without ever reading the script. He claims he had only ever done that for the Christopher Nolan projects he worked on; Amnesia (2000), Batman inicia (2005) and Insomnia (2002).
The film was originally conceived as an independent remake of Viernes 13 (1980). When Viernes 13 (2009) was announced, the concept was reworked into an original feature.