Despite having a contract, the director was held at gun point and forced back into his truck by a landowner while location scouting and doing camera tests at a certain key filming location. The landowner later served as security while filming in the same location.
The premise (people finding a mysterious chest in the woods) is supposedly true. Growing up, the director was often told this story by his eccentric uncles. However, depending on who tells it, the location of the chest tends to change: some claim it was found behind a waterfall, while others claim it was discovered in a mine. With some inspiration coming from the Schrödinger's Cat experiment, this urban folktale was mainly used as the basis for the movie.