 The external views of the house were taken from the block built at the west end of the Remsen Street in Brooklyn and many of the film's locations are in Brooklyn Heights.Winner was inspired by the depictions of the creatures of Hell as they appear in the works of Christopher Marlowe, Dante's "Inferno", and the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch.Shortly after the film's release, Winner revealed that many of the deformed persons featured in the finale were actually people with physical disabilities and abnormalities, whom he cast from hospitals and sideshows.