This film was made for Timothy David Mitchell 's year 12 media course (which he was doing via correspondents). Although that the grade was a joint grade for not only the film but also earlier production exercises for the course (the final grade was the exercises and film combined), he received an A+ for it.
Although Timothy David Mitchell has made documentaries before, this is his first mockumentary. It is also his first horror/thriller production.
The film was originally supposed to be about drug possession and drug dealing within the school as a companion piece for one of Timothy David Mitchell's other school projects, entitled 'Ill-fated', in 2008, about a cannabis-addicted student (who goes on a massacre in his school as a result of being bullied for his drug addiction). As soon as Mitchell told his teachers that the project was partly inspired by District 9 (2009), he was told not to do something realistic like drug possession, but to try something non-realistic like demonic or alien possession. Mitchell was also aware of and fascinated by the film The Haunting in Connecticut (2009), and ultimately rewrote most of the script to focus on demonic possession.
Although scripts were provided for the actors (particularly the staff actors, since most of them had never acted before), Timothy David Mitchell insisted that they improvise their lines if they preferred, to make the dialogue more natural. For the assistant principal's scenes, only a small amount of dialogue was actually scripted, and Mitchell made Laura Butterworth improvise more dialogue than was actually needed for the film. Also, to help with improvisation, all female staff actors were shown the footage of the raids and Samuel Clinton's death for inspiration. Tony Whiting didn't see the footage as he had no laptop with him at the time. This is why all the female staff members are seen with laptops and the principal is not.
For time reasons, the opening quote from Deuteronomy was not included in the original version Timothy David Mitchell submitted to be graded for his media course. It has been included in all future versions, however.
Timothy David Mitchell: [interview scene] The film contains mockumentary interview scenes with staff members of the school.
Timothy David Mitchell: [disclaimer] A Bible passage from Deuteronomy is displayed before the film opens.
Timothy David Mitchell: [religion] The film's subject matter is centered around belief in demonic power.