It stars Danny Trejo, Michael Paré, Tom Sizemore, Ja Rule, and Paul Wall.

[1] The original script for Furnace was written by Anghus Houvouras, and the project was brought up to director William Butler, who thought that the story was reminiscent of the 1988 film Prison.

Butler signed to direct, and he and his writing partner Aaron Strongoni collaborated to polish the script to meet Melee Entertainment's budgetary concerns.

Butler said of the change, "This of course was no reflection on Anghus, but instead the team of people at Melee that sort of took the film in another direction.

Dread Central awarded the film a score of 2.5 / 5 stating "All in all, Furnace is just another blah horror entry to clutter the direct-to-DVD market.