Although 'Interzone' is set in Tangiers, the film crew had to shoot all the interiors in Toronto as North Africa was off limits during the first Gulf War. Films about writers usually involve a static quality where the writer spends a lot of their time in front of the typewriter. Cronenberg has made his writer live the hallucinatory situations that made him put pen to paper. 'Interzone' becomes William Lee's hallucinatory state of mind, where his writings are not just musings on past events, but 'reports' on everything he sees and experiences around him at that moment. Like Max Renn in 'Videodrome', Cronenberg sees Lee's imagination as a disease, as a mind constantly 'on', unable to turn off the constant stream of images that prevades his reality.

Cronenberg totally reshaped the original book for the screen, most noticably in playing down the homosexual aspects of the original novel. The 'bug powder' and the black stuff given to Lee by Dr. Benway were used as a euphamism for drugs. Obvious references to coke, heroin and crack weren't used so that there wouldn't be a 'Just Say No' campaign against the film. Although even if named drugs were overtly mentioned, it's difficult to see a mainstream audience coming to a movie like this. 'Naked Lunch' is unlike any movie you've seen before or anyone you're likely to see hence and for that reason alone, it's worth the admission price.

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