Michael Berryman and Nicholas Worth, both employees of the movie's villainous location Steaming Springs, worked with director Wes Craven before. Berryman became iconic in Craven's The Hills Have Eyes (and later the sequel) and Worth played a henchman transformed into a monster in Swamp Thing.
The set for the residential interior was constructed on a sound stage in/at the Culver City Studios on Washington Boulevard (the old Selznick Studio of "Gone With The Wind" fame). Production offices, also, were located at the studio. The interior living room stage set required a turn around for the scenario effects script requirement (with wind and bricks flying from and through the walls). On the same sound stage, the health club set was erected with three thicknesses of plaster wall board covering the wooden stage flooring set footprint, required for the controlled fire effects when Susan Lucci introduces her "hellish" character's charms! The translucent vacuum formed panels, used in the set wall panels, actually started melting from the intense heat radiated from the gas-line-pipes which were positioned to create the aisle of fire Susan Lucci walked through. The fire sequence required several re-takes causing the plastic material melting. Viewing the sequence, you can see the vacuum formed 4" deep pyramid pattern-plastic design sag on camera. Susan Lucci's costume and hair was singed and scorched from the intense heat.
ABC-TV Daytime-series 1983 contract with actress Susan Lucci for her featured "Erica Kane" role on ABC's "All My Children" (drama series: 1970-2011), guaranteed Susan Lucci a 'first' - a night-time "Movie of the Week" for her guaranteed extension as "Erica Kane" on the ABC daily/weekly soap-opera series. The network's night-time MOW programing division optioned Richard Rothstein to write a mystery. A science fiction-horror thriller scenario, specifically for Susan Lucci for ABC's 1983-1984 MOW night time season of specials. This project was planned to give Susan Lucci a dramatic opportunity - in hopes Lucci would be nominated in the night-time EMMY Best Actress category. The producing team: Robert M. Sertner (producer), Frank von Zerneck (executive producer) and Phillip Wylly Sr. (executive in charge of production & production manager) were entrusted to develop the property. When production was initiated at Culver City Studios (aka:The David Selznick Studio), Petko D. Kadiev, an accomplished story-board illustrator, was brought on board to illustrate and storyboard the original script. Production designer/art director Hub Braden was hired to preliminary budget, scout and design the sets. Jerry Esposito (construction supervisor and coordinator) and Tony Saenz (location manager) also joined the production creative film team. No director had been selected. The ABC night-time network-programing Suits and the producers negotiated to hire Wes Craven as the "Invitation to Hell" MOW director; ABC wanted Wes Craven because of his unique previous television and feature film writing and directing accomplishments. By the time Wes Craven joined the project's creative team, much of the project had been developed. Craven set about studying the script, viewing story-board script illustrations, and collaborating with the creative team on a few of the conceptual requirements. Between scouting sessions, rewriting and tweaking script dialogue, Craven was engrossed in the production. Casting had already determined Susan Lucci, featured as the female "Lucifer" - Jessica Jones; Robert Urich was to play Matt Winslow; Joanna Cassidy was Urich's character's wife Patricia "Pat" Winslow; and Kevin McCarthy as Mr. Thompson. Dean Cundy was hired as cinematographer. Wes Craven and the producers conducted casting-meetings, selecting the final cast performers. While discussing the script motivation during scouting locations on a Saturday morning, the production designer Braden suggested to Wes Craven and Robert Sertner to embellish the film's ending, by adding a "Hitchcock twist" setting up a sequel for the star Susan Lucci. Bob Sertner turned to Wes Craven, exclaiming, "Why didn't we think of that!" The dynamic team feared the network "suits" response dealing with an added twist, altering or tampering with the network's approved script. The only Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Creative Arts EMMY nomination for "Invitation to Hell" was in the category of "Art Direction".
The NASA astronaut space suit costume that Robert Urich was to wear at the climax of the "inferno Hell" sequence became a major-critical problem initiated with the film's production scheduling. The production designer took the task of getting an astronaut space suit wardrobe-package since the film costumer was not hired. Braden contacted the costume designer Patricia Norris at MGM Studios in Culver City. Norris had been involved in the 1968 feature film "2001: A Space Odyssey." MGM Wardrobe had the only collection of 'NASA astronaut space suits' in the Hollywood galaxy. The MGM NASA astronaut space suit costume was not complete. The shoulder-back-pack assembly package was missing; had to be designed; constructed - which contained the battery operated motorized cooling fan unit required to keep the actor from over-heating while wearing the astronaut space suit for filming sequences. The effects house filmed a sequence of Bob Urich wearing his NASA space suit protecting him from the intense heat, falling - descending into Hell's inferno; this sequence was scheduled as a miniature shot. The effects house did not have the capacity to provide the miniature space suit-doll-character. Production designer-Braden purchased an 8 inch military G-I-Joe plastic toy doll. Purchasing fabric material matching the space suit's material finish, the designer gave the toy doll to his mother who made patterns and sewed together the miniature space suit to fit the GI Joe doll. Braden carved the back pack, (gloves and boots), from balsa wood matching the NASA space suit's back pack unit built by the construction coordinator Jerry Esposito. A small white plastic ball was detailed to match the space suit helmet. The miniature doll was delivered to the Hollywood effects house. The Hollywood Effects filming team proceeded to mount the miniature doll to a steel rod attached to the doll's belly button. The doll was spun in blue screen process, with the camera tracked (backing) away from the spinning miniature space-suit-doll; this sequence was matted over another filmed background plate providing the illusion of Urich in his NASA space suit sailing down into Jessica Jones' hell-hole subterranean inferno environment.
A preliminary production asset of "story-boarding" a script by a visual lay-out graphic illustrator is rare - in a television movie or for a series program property; a luxury few producers budget nor schedule. Because of ABC's focus developing this MOW property for Susan Lucci, the producers (Robert Sertner and Frank von Zerneck) immediately hired the Russian film script illustrator Petko Kadiev; illustrating the script gave the producer's a visual presentation story-book to dazzle the network suits; an analysis of camera shots providing a visual tangible bible for both the director and the cinema-photographer. These film shot lay-outs provided the optical effects a complete analysis of their work to be performed. The Hollywood Effects house previously had provided the film-optical effects for all of the British produced James Bond films in their London based unit. The American owned effects company had established their Hollywood based facility in the heart of Hollywood, located in a huge warehouse-stage facility (near the Samuel Goldwyn Studio, located off Santa Monica Boulevard). The Petko Kadiev storyboard script sequence was handed over to the optical-effects team which determined the shot-sequence required by the script's dictated shot set-ups. Bob Urick performed all of his work, dressed in the NASA astronaut space suit during filming. He was not doubled by another actor nor by a stunt double. Staff-plastic-skin hard-wall flats, built on the Culver City production stage, were transferred to the Hollywood Effects stage for additional filming requirements, utilizing both first and second effect team photography units. This "Jessica Jones' hell inferno" two day optical effects filming sequence was the final filming of the MOW project.