Timothy Van Patten wrote the concerto that Stegman plays.
In one of his early film roles, Michael J. Fox was still being billed as "Michael Fox", registration problems with the Screen Actors Guild would later prompt him to add the middle initial "J" to his stage name.
Mark L. Lester said the film was inspired by several true stories of school violence he had read about in papers. In particular, was a story of a teacher who brought a gun to class to control his students, the scene ended up in the film.
Due to the film's violent content and full frontal nudity, Lester had a difficult time getting a U.S. distributor for the film, though numerous overseas distributors bought the film and made it quite successful abroad.