This was the final feature film for cult director Joseph H. Lewis. He would spend much of the next decade directing television episodes before retiring from the industry. His other work includes: My Name Is Julia Ross (1945), a terse little thriller about a case of mistaken identity, Gun Crazy (1950), a variation on the Bonnie and Clyde story told with gripping narrative skill, and the astonishing film noir thriller, The Big Combo (1955), which is as raw and edgy as any gangster thriller made that decade - all ingenious efforts that prove Lewis was one of the great low-budget stylists of his era.
Gerald Fried composed a minimalist and non-traditional score for this film. It is performed by a small ensemble consisting of mostly solo trumpet, acoustic guitar, English horn, tympani, and percussion. There are no strings or other "big orchestra" elements. And the themes are decidedly non-Western, tending to the classical and baroque.
According to modern sources, Terror in a Texas Town (1958) was made in 10 days for $80,000. By incorporating 10 to 20 scenes into one shot and covering it in various angles and points-of-view, economical director Joseph H. Lewis pulled off the feat with tremendous aplomb.
Rob Hunter, like some other critics, notes similarities in the themes of this film and Fred Zinnemann's big-budget, award-winning High Noon (1952): "There are two themes running through its short running time - the unfortunate reality that most people won't lift a finger to help others, whether out of disinterest or fear, and the even sadder awareness that this is a country that's long since stopped welcoming outsiders with open arms." Elements of the film, especially Sterling Hayden's unconvincing Swedish accent, are still criticized, but critic David Sterritt states that "Among important Westerns of the Fifties, only those of Anthony Mann and Samuel Fuller contain moods more potent or feelings more extreme than the ones Lewis directed ..."including this one."
After suffering a heart attack in 1953, Joseph H. Lewis began to reduce his workload. But excited by the script shared by his friend Nedrick Young, Lewis agreed to do it and being his final film, he had nothing to fear from working with blacklisted artists.