The director said in a documentary that the story was originally about the soldiers burning down a temple to a snake goddess and years later a young Vietnamese child comes to the United States for revenge. The executive producer allegedly insisted on a Halloween type slasher film set on a yacht. This combined with repeated bad editing produced confusion.

Ultra low-budget, with a budget of $250K. No real wardrobe other than what appears to be military surplus for the war scenes. Some of the soldiers are wearing camouflage hunting gear and one is wearing a shooting vest.

According to his book Hell-bent for Hollywood: A Director's Journey, In post-production, Director Fred Olen Ray was assigned to shoot additional scenes to try to help the movie make more sense. His scenes include any exterior shots of the boat taken from a camera boat and a scene that gives meaning to the title Moon in Scorpio. He also almost got into a fistfight with William Smith because he refused to turn back the boat to go get Smith's glasses that he left on shore.