Madeleine Sims-Fewer said in an interview that she was inspired by male antiheroes from other films -- like Taxi Driver's Travis Bickle and Harvey Keitel in Bad Lieutenant -- for her character because she couldn't think of any female antiheroes who felt the same way the men did. She said those men "do really unspeakable things but you're still along for the ride with them. That's something that I feel really passionately about, creating these characters who are despicable and who are awful and conflicted and almost kind of OCD in their single-mindedness of what they think is right. Miriam believes that she is a crusader for good. Whatever we then see of her as an audience, it was integral that she thinks she is the white knight in the story."
Director and co-writer Dusty Mancinelli said he and star/co-writer Madeleine Sims-Fewer feel that, in many ways, Violation is sort of an anti-revenge film. He said, "Most revenge films have this sort of cathartic moment where the audience sort of cheers on the protagonist as they successfully enact their revenge and it leads to this emotional release. For us, we were more interested in how a gruesome act can really unravel and erode your morality."
Since the nude scene with actor Jesse LaVercombe was a 10-minute sequence shot in all natural light, it took five days to film it. That meant LaVercombe had to be on set 12 hours a day fully nude with the fully-dressed Madeleine Sims-Fewer.
Madeleine Sims-Fewer said the female revenge plot and focusing more male nudity than female wasn't in response to the #MeToo movement, which had just started to build while they were developing the movie. The story was something she and Dusty Mancinelli had been thinking about personally for a long time.
Three of the four central characters are shown fully nude. The only one who isn't is the central character Miriam, who is only shown partially nude. Madeleine Sims-Fewer, who plays Miriam, said it was a conscious decision to never show her character fully "without her armor." But she said they did film a scene where she and the character Caleb were seen fully nude brushing their teeth in the shower. But when they were editing it, she and director Dusty Mancinell realized that it wasn't necessary and cut it to where she isn't fully exposed.