First screen credit of J.J. Abrams. He was 16. Abrams became aware of Don Dohler from the latter's articles in a local film magazine, Cinemagic. After Dohler and Abrams exchanged correspondence, Dohler asked Abrams if he would be interested in scoring the film. While the film was shot in Baltimore, Maryland, Abrams, who lived in Los Angeles, mailed the tapes to Dohler.
In Panos Cosmatos' 2018 film "Mandy", Nicolas Cage and Andrea Riseborough's characters are seen watching this movie on TV while they eat dinner.
Director Don Dohler did not like nudity, extreme violence, and gore, but he reluctantly acknowledged that audiences enjoyed seeing this type of thing so he included them.
The monster's space suit was actually a motorcycle range suit.
Some additional scenes involving explicit gore and full nudity were filmed after principal shooting had wrapped in order to pad out the running time to a reasonable feature length.