Jon Pertwee later claimed that the film was "meant to be a comedy-horror film and was initially filmed in that way. According to Pertwee during the production "the producer came in, took one look at what we are doing and went raving mad" insisting it was to be a horror film and not a comedy. This meant a change of tone, but the material which had already been filmed remained, resulting in the film dipping in quality and edits to remove comedy elements from Pertwee's sequences. Pertwee also admitted that he intentionally based his character, the horror actor Paul Henderson, on his co-star and friend Christopher Lee. During the production Lee realised that Pertwee was basing his performance on an actor, but did not know it was based on him. A scene where Jon's character talks about favourite roles, he says that he prefers Bela Lugosi Dracula rather than the chap who plays him nowadays (meaning Christopher Lee).