This film was actually shot and completed in 2010, but delayed for over two years after Warner Bros. ended its relationship with production company Dark Castle Entertainment before finally releasing the film in August 2012, a notorious dump month for releases. Warner Bros. gave the film the smallest wide-release it has given a major motion picture in its distribution history.
This film, along with Getaway (2013), were the last films to be released by Dark Castle Entertainment before the company shut down and went out of business.
The plot for the film was loosely inspired by the Philip experiment, a 1972 parapsychology experiment conducted in Toronto, Ontario to determine whether subjects can communicate with fictionalized ghosts through expectations of human will. Despite this, the finished film faced severe accusations of plagiarism and ripping off various other horror films including Ring (1998), Pulse (2001), Ju-on: The Grudge (2002), and Paranormal Activity (2007).
Although similarities have been drawn between this film and Japanese horror film Pulse (2001), this film is not officially a remake of that film, any similarities were purely coincidental.