This was Peter Cushing's first of 22 Hammer films. However, the second Hammer film that he made, The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), was released first.
The film was originally to be called "The Snow Creature" before it was realized that director W. Lee Wilder had beaten them to it with The Snow Creature (1954).
Like the "Quatermass" films produced by Hammer, The Quatermass Xperiment (1955), Quatermass 2 (1957) and Quatermass and the Pit (1967), this was based on one of Nigel Kneale's television dramas, namely The Creature (1955).
The American distributors paired this film as a double feature with The Crawling Eye (1958), which also starred Forrest Tucker.
Although Peter Cushing reprised his role as John Rollason from The Creature (1955), Forrest Tucker replaced Stanley Baker as Tom Friend in the film version. The only other actors to repeat their roles from the original television version are Arnold Marlé (The Lhama) and Wolfe Morris (Kusang).