According to Pamela Susan Shoop, the film's sound man had a fight with director Bert I. Gordon towards the end of the shoot and threw all of the movie's audio tapes into the swamp. They lost everything, so the entire film had to be looped. Because of this, the voices and actions never quite mesh.
The film's producer, director, and writer Bert I. Gordon created some of the special effects of the giant ants by shooting magnified images of the Panamanian bullet ant.
As a promotional gimmick for this film, theaters displayed ant farms in their lobbies, though they were not allowed anywhere near the concession counters.
This was the third of three films directed by Bert I. Gordon to claim to be based on the works of H. G. Wells. Actually, all three of the films had little or nothing to do with their original source material. This was also the eighth film that Gordon directed to deal with the subject of giant monsters.
Joan Collins disliked working with the film's ant props, claiming that they bumped into and scratched the actors, including her.