Although this film is a work of fiction, it was inspired by the murder of Marcy Conrad, who was killed by her friend Anthony Jacques Broussard in Milpitas, California, in 1981.
Neal Jimenez read the story in the newspaper while visiting friends, wrote a script, and turned it in to his instructor, while he was an English major at Santa Clara University. Jimenez said "that the incident is merely the inspiration for the screenplay."
Corey Haim was originally cast as Tim, but he got sick after the first day of production and had to be replaced. Joshua John Miller ended up playing this role.
Screenwriter Neal Jimenez based the characters on friends, with whom he went to school, in Sacramento, California.
Danyi Deats, playing Jamie, spends ninety percent of her screen time acting out rigor mortis in the nude. "I never considered any of the ramifications, like how horrified my family would be, or to have a theater full of people to see me naked at nineteen. But that's the beauty of being nineteen: that you don't look ahead," Deats said.