Donald S. Sanford was hired by Lou Morheim on the strength of his work on the Boris Karloff anthology series "Thriller", for which he had scripted fifteen episodes including 'The Incredible Dr. Markesan' and 'The Cheaters', as Joseph Stefano had been looking for story material with a heavy emphasis on the Gothic to provide director Curtis Harrington with an 'Outer Limits' episode. (Harrington had directed the low-budget film "Night Tide", an offbeat version of the Lorelei myth, in 1961 which had impressed Stefano.) A script by Charles Beaumont was given to Sanford for revision, though in the end Sanford came up with his own more Gothic plot, Harrington backed out and Paul Stanley directed.