[4] It was directed by Richard Franklin and written by Everett De Roche from a story by Lee David Zlotoff and Tom Ackermann.

I’m calling it an anthropological thriller as opposed to a psychological thriller.”[5] Dr. Steven Phillip lives in a Victorian mansion by the English Coast with three chimpanzees which he has been doing research on to investigate the “link” between man and ape.

Jane Chase is invited to his house during summer vacation as an assistant, and upon arriving, she gets greeted at the door by a chimpanzee named Link, dressed in a butler's uniform.

"[6] He did not do anything with it until the writer Everett de Roche showed him a National Geographic article by Jane Goodall about violence among chimpanzees.

Franklin later said what sparked the idea of the film was Goodall observing "the cannibalizing of young chimpanzees by one particular mad female chimp.

Since then, they’ve discovered that lions and other animals do it as well, but that, to me, was a really interesting idea for a good thriller.”[7] Everett De Roche wrote the script.

"I wanted to contrast the primitivism of jungle animals with Old World values, high culture, and "civilisation" - which is one of the subjects of the picture.

Link is a very special thriller and should be treated accordingly.”[11] When the film was released in the US by the Cannon Group, eight minutes were cut, despite Franklin's objections.

[6] Franklin later described this process as "each new one chipping a little more away until my wife was moved to liken the plight of my monkey movie to that of the horse in Black Beauty.

[16] Prior to the film's release Franklin said he had an idea for a follow-up movie, about an anthropologist in Africa who becomes involved in a chimpanzee war.