Trivia

Clive Barker hated the film.

The founding members of the band Freur, Karl Hyde and Rick Smith, who scored the music for this movie would ironically name their second music project Underworld after disbanding. Underworld would later become successful for their contribution of "Dark & Long (Dark Train)" and "Born Slippy.NUXX" for the Trainspotting soundtrack.

The idea for dreams and fantasies to manifest itself physiologically relies on the person using the drug. Dr. Savary (Denholm Elliot), always injecting others with the drug, would have had syringe needles coming out of his face during his death scene when he's forced to make his dreams a reality. This would be the conceptual beginning of the Pinhead character in Clive Barker's later film franchise, Hellraiser.

Denholm Elliot (Dr. Savary) was in three hours of make-up for his death scene. He wore two masks at the same time, one with muscles and a second on top that was a mold of his face. His hand had "blood pipes" connected to run fake blood as he tore the top layer of his mask as he disintegrates.

The idea of dreams and fantasies manifesting in the drug addicts in physical form was more cohesive with Clive Barker's script and George Pavlou's conceptual pitch. For instance, they both shared and pitched the idea that a drug addict who would dream that they were a tree, would physically become one. Pavlou's concept art had a Bonsai tree growing out of a user's head. The producers either thought the make-up design would be too weird for moviegoers to understand and too expensive to make practically. Instead, the make-up design only went as far as exaggerated mutations or subtle abnormalities.