The film centers around a police detective trying to save his city, as well as his daughter, from an online predator who enjoys bringing "enlightenment" through ritual pain.

The film has a strong emphasis on the Modern Primitive subculture and its ethos of spiritual transcendence through painful rites, showing several such different practices therein.

Accordingly, a large amount of dialogue of the film's villain (concerning his personal philosophy) are paraphrases or direct quotations of Fakir Musafar, the father of the Modern Primitive movement.

Mike discovers that Captain Howdy is into "body art", including significant tattooing, piercing, branding, and scarification.

However, the near-death experience, something he had mentioned hoping to attain earlier on in the film, reverts him to being Captain Howdy, this time with revenge on his mind.

After Hendricks disconnects, Genevieve, Roth, Catherine and a few other victims are soon found alive, but brutally tortured, by officers responding to a call.

A line from the song, spoken by Howdy to one of his victims, carries over into the film after he stitches Genevieve's mouth shut: "There...that's better!"

The overall tale of the song and character has similarities with that of A Nightmare on Elm Street and the backstory of Freddy Krueger, although the film debuted in theaters six months after the release of Stay Hungry.

The Captain Howdy character differs significantly from one medium to another: the song's villain is presented as a cold-blooded monster who is fully in control of his actions and is a traditional killer with no mention of body modifications; conversely, the film portrays a mentally imbalanced man whose motivations are more on par with that of a would-be cult leader.

He does not initially set out to kill anyone, instead intending to "help" them through forced body modifications and ritualistic pain in the name of transcendental enlightenment, albeit for his own sadistic pleasure.

The club scenes for Xibalba were filmed at Denver's Church nightclub, and Strangeland was the first TSG Pictures and Artisan DVD release.

[2] Although the film took advantage of the inherent dangers of what was at that time the burgeoning precursor to social network platforms, many found the story overly contrived and emotionally flat.

[5] Due to the sudden closing of Fangoria Comics, the remaining three issues went unreleased until the series was picked up by The Scream Factory in 2008.