Psychopathia Sexualis is the first collaboration of writer/director Bret Wood and producer Tracy Martin, who formed the production company Illustrated Films to cultivate this and other unconventional film projects.

Psychopathia Sexualis was shot on a small budget in Atlanta, Georgia on standard definition 24p digital video. The attempt to recreate Victorian Europe under such improbable conditions was undertaken with the help of a cast of more than 80 actors and a talented and determined crew. The idea was not to fabricate a richly detailed, historically accurate setting, but rather evoke a more dreamlike vision of the time and place (influenced largely by German silent films of the 1910s and ’20s).

Although shot in fewer than 30 days, production of Psychopathia Sexualis lasted almost a full year, as the resourceful crew cleared obstacles and devised ways to recreate turn-of-the-century Europe on the film's limited budget.