Larry Cohen stated how he enjoyed filming and how cooperative the real gang members in the film were "who came every day to work. They were always on time. They did everything they were asked to do. You know, if you wanted to shoot them and have them fall down, they did falls. They did anything you asked, and they were very friendly to me. They used to come to my trailer and bring me Famous Amos cookies, things like that. They did their best to ingratiate themselves. I was not concerned with the ones we hired, but with the ones that didn't get hired. I thought, "Well, now one of the ones that didn't get hired might just drive by one day with a machine gun or something, and polish us all off in one afternoon." But it never happened. Everything was fine there for the entire shoot of the picture, and they were all very cooperative and pleasant. And then it was all over, and we left. And it was kind of sad, because while we were there they all had jobs, and they had some place to go every day, and they had some focus and some reason for being. Then when we left, we kind of just abandoned everybody. And there's nothing we could do about it. We couldn't take them back to Hollywood. That's where they lived, so there's nothing we could do".
Larry Cohen revealed that two weeks after the film crew left, "the National Guard had to come in there. There was so much violence. They started killing each other right and left as soon as we were gone. So I felt there was a movie in that. A movie company goes to a gang town, and everything is great. And then they leave everybody behind, and this is what happens. You know, I felt bad about it, but there was really nothing I could do about it. You know, Gary isn't that far from Chicago, and we have an apartment in Chicago. So I would go back to Chicago maybe on Sunday or something, the day we didn't shoot. And then I'd come back to Gary, and then shoot the rest of the picture. And then when we left, we went back to Chicago, and that was it. We never went back to Gary again, and I haven't been back there since. I've never heard from anybody in the town".
Last theatrical film directed by Larry Cohen, though he continued to write features through 2010.
The movie is set in Gary Indiana, Fred Williamson (John Bookman) was born in Gary. And the city could not have been more cooperative, including allowing the production to blow up a block of abandoned houses.
Paul Winfield, Ron O'Neal, and Isabel Sanford all passed away in 2004.