Writer/director Stewart Raffill said in an interview that the idea for this film only happened because they had access to a full size T-Rex animatronic. A guy came to him who owned theatres in South America and he said he had the T-Rex that was going to a park in Texas. The eyes worked. The arms moved. The head moved. He told Rafill he wanted to use it to make a movie. Rafill asked what the story was and the guy said there wasn't one yet, but they had to start filming within the month because he only had the T-Rex for two weeks. So Rafill wrote the story in a week and worked on the script as they filmed. He even said he was constantly asking the cast and crew if they have anything better they could add.
To save money, all the locations were within 25 minutes of the director's house. During production, a big fire destroyed lots of properties. Smoke is visible in the background in some scenes.
A lot of gory scenes that were deleted to secure a PG-13 rating ended up in the Italian dub. When Vinegar Syndrome discovered an uncut 35mm print, the film was restored to its original uncensored version.
This entire movie can be watched in the player's house in the video game "High On Life," released 13 December 2022.
The movie's original title was 'Tanny & the Teenage T-Rex', which is the title seen on the restored uncut version. In addition, the ending credits have always credited Denise Richards as 'Tanny'.