The decision to have rainy weather in the early driving scenes was an effort to hide the fact that the interior scenes in Peter's jeep were filmed inside a darkened garage. During the shooting grips would run past carrying flashlights to make it appear like they were lights from passing cars.
Despite winning numerous awards and being a success overseas, the film was a flop both critically and commercially in its home country of Australia.
The tree that the harpoon gets impaled into, then later dies and decays throughout the climax, wasn't actually part of the forest at the filming location. It was cut and transported to the location for the shoot so that it could gradually be destroyed during the film.
When the film was screened at the Cannes Film Festival, producer Richard Brennen noticed a man get up and leave the screening after only 10 minutes of the film. He followed the man out to ask him why he was leaving. It turned out the gentleman was a film distributor for South America and was going to buy the rights to the film after seeing only minutes of it. In total four foreign distributors bought rights to release the picture during the screening.
Cinematographer Vincent Monton said that the weather conditions while shooting the film were eerily co-operative. He said when the script would call for a scene with sunny skies the weather would be beautiful, but as the intensity and strangeness of the script grew the weather conditions would change to match the moody atmosphere of the scenes being filmed. Throughout the shoot the weather always seemed to change to suit the scene that was being made!
Colin Eggleston: The film's director provides the voice on the phone of the lover of Marcia (Briony Behets). In real life, at the time of the film, Eggleston and Behets were married.