Matt Hundley was not the first choice to do special effects for this film. Halfway through, the original special effects artist said "I'll be right back, I'm going to get a pack of smokes," and never came back.
Director Gary Jones had originally planned for much bigger ideas with the original screenplay, many of which had to be scrapped when the budget was severely slashed. The film was supposed to open with a massive bank heist-gone-wrong shootout that would've resulted in the death of a fourth member of Earl's posse, who we never see in the final film. We were to see the mosquito horde attack Detroit, Michigan and a military base with disastrous results. Also, the corpses of those who had been killed by the mosquitoes would be reanimated back to life as flesh-eating zombies, and those who had been stabbed by a mosquito and survived would slowly become zombies themselves. This last idea was not only removed due to budgetary constraints but because the filmmakers felt it distracted too much from the mosquitoes.
The original title for this movie was "Skeeters." This was changed when another killer mosquito film titled Skeeter (1993) came out while the film was in post-production. Other working titles included "Nightswarm" and "Blood Fever".
For the scene where the two fishermen are attacked in their boat, special effects man Matt Hundley, was chosen to be the anchor in the water, with weights tied to his feet, to hold the boat steady. Matt informed everyone he couldn't swim, but he was chosen to do it anyway.
The rig used to make the giant mosquitoes look like they were flying was nicknamed "the boom of doom" by the crew.