Don Coscarelli rented all of the filming equipment used to make this movie, always on Fridays so he could use it all weekend and return it on Mondays, all the while only actually having to pay one day's rental on the equipment.
The genesis of the story came to Don Coscarelli in a dream. One night in his late teens, he dreamed of fleeing down endlessly long marble corridors, pursued by a chrome sphere intent on penetrating his skull with a wicked needle. There was also a quite futuristic "sphere dispenser" out of which the orbs would emerge and begin chase.
The spheres were designed by craftsman Willard Green, who charged the production a little over $1,100 for his services. Sadly, he died just after production completed at the end of 1977 and never saw his work on the big screen.
The stone-looking interior of the mausoleum was actually constructed of plywood and marble-colored plastic contact paper.
Don Coscarelli's mother, novelist Kate Coscarelli, held several titles on the production and even used two aliases, "S. Tyler" and "Shirley Mae", for production design and make up/costume design respectively. She also wrote a novel adaptation based on the film. It was published in 2002 and only 500 copies were produced.