Director Peter Greenaway has said that one of the sources of inspiration for the film was the banning of the Benetton advertising poster campaign in the UK that featured pictures of a newborn baby, covered in blood and still attached to its umbilical cord. An outcry caused the posters to be removed. "What is so horrible about a newborn baby?" Greenaway wanted to know. "Why is that image (one that is seen many times a day in hospitals all over the country) so unacceptable, when much more horrific images are presented on television and the cinema, featuring murder and rape, but glamorized and made safe?" Thus Greenaway set out to make a film featuring murder and rape in which "nothing was glamorized and nothing was safe".

Finnish video version is cut by 1 minute 14 seconds.

Featured in The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Part 2: Vaux to the Sea (2004)