Joe D'Amato met Raffaele Donato in 1975 on the set of "Red Coats" and used him repeatedly as an English dialogue coach. He encountered him again years later in the United States and hired him on "Deep Blood" because he needed someone who was fluent in English. In an interview D'Amato gave for the 1996 book "Spaghetti Nightmares", D'Amato stated that Donato had told him that he wanted to direct a film, but after directing the first scene of the film at the beach, Donato realized that directing films was not what he wanted to do. D'Amato then finished the film on his own.