William Shatner really wanted to play the role of Colt Hawker. He nearly got the part but was told that before it could be offered to him, there was one more actor left to audition. The actor was Michael Ironside.
The limp Michael Ironside sports at the end of the movie was real. He broke his ankle on the first day of filming.
Michael Ironside was cast as Colt Hawker partly because he had given such a sinister performance in David Cronenberg's Scanners (1981), which was also from the same producers of Visiting Hours.
This was the first of the UK's infamous 'Video Nasty' films to be aired on television. The ITV network aired the film uncut in 1989 and subsequently received a fine from the Broadcasting Standards Council.
The film became controversial in the UK after it briefly appeared on the DPP 72 list of "Video Nasties."