One of the last films from Twentieth Century Fox that was made before they were acquired by The Walt Disney Company. The film was quietly dumped into theaters and made so little money that even a home video release on DVD was deemed non-profitable.
The fictional high school in fictional Webster Mills, MO is named after Jacques Derrida, the French philosopher known for his theory of deconstructionism. Many of the aphoristic statements which can be read in the questionnaire handed over at the Pontifex Institute meeting, while not direct quotation from Derrida, have a clear relationship with Derrida's works.
When James is researching on Wikipedia, much of the text on "Tulpas" and "thoughtform" is genuinely documented on Wikipedia.
The Chain of Rocks Bridge that is featured in the film was filmed on location on said bridge North of St. Louis MO. The same bridge was used for the chase sequence towards the end of New York 1997 (1981).