"The film marked actress Linda Blair's third leading role in a horror film, following her Oscar-nominated performance in "The Exorcist" (1973) and its sequel "" (1977).In his DVD commentary, director Wes Craven recalled that Blair had recently "gotten into some trouble" prior to filming; also that he was plainly inspired by Roman Polanski's work, and tried to carefully build a sense of paranoia and suspense in the film's narrative.