The film's 1990 release in the U.S. coincided with a small craze of Jim Thompson novels being adapted to film. The other Jim Thompson novels to be adapted into films were The Grifters and After Dark, My Sweet, also in 1990.
Filmed in 21 days.
Director of photography Declan Quinn shot the film with low lighting; at times, footage of characters more than a few feet from the camera can be difficult to see. This was done to mirror the stylistic photography of the film noirs of the 1940s and 1950s.