TORONTO -- Author Joe Hill didn't start off wanting to follow in the footsteps of his dad, bestselling horror novelist Stephen King.

Growing up in Bangor, Maine, he wanted to be a special effects artist, like the ones his dad knew who used to make Hill "really great, gross costumes" for Halloween, he said.

"Later in the years, my dad was such a big deal as America's horror guy that (Halloween) kind of became not so fun," Hill said in a recent telephone interview to discuss the new film adaptation of his novel "Horns."

"There's this big wrought-iron fence in front of the house in Bangor with devils and bats on it and a dragon, and people would come by with blowtorches in the middle of Halloween night and steal the bats, and that happened over and over again."

Hill said such theft still happens to this day, and Halloween is now much more subdued in the King household.

"People got very strange about Stephen King, and so at this point it's been years since any kind of Halloween celebration at the house at all," said Hill who was born Joe Hillstrom King (Joe Hill is his pen name). "Everything is kept lights off and there's a Bangor PD car parked out front.

"People get awfully passionate and sometimes that passion can squirt out in troubling ways. Not always but now and then, enthusiasm can get the best of all of us."

Enthusiasm was not what Hill was feeling when he first started writing "Horns."

The film adaptation of the dark fantasy thriller, from director Alexandre Aja and screenplay writer Keith Bunin, stars Daniel Radcliffe as protagonist Ignatius (Ig) Perrish. After a drunken night, Ig awakens to discover not only a pair of horns growing from his forehead, but also accusations that he killed his girlfriend (Juno Temple).

"I wrote 'Horns' in a state of desperation," Hill said from New Hampshire. "It was very hard to finish the novel, and I was in a bad space mentally when I worked on it.

"I sound like a joke -- like a character from a Woody Allen picture -- but by the time the book was finished, my marriage was over and I was in therapy."

His dad gave him the reassurance he needed after Hill sent him the first draft of the book.

"I thought probably it was a wreck, and he read it and he said, 'It's great, you're OK,"' said Hill. "It was the first time I knew I was OK, that I hadn't made a wreck of it but I had a pretty good book -- and at least there, things were going to work out."

Hill did the same thing with the film adaptation, which is running in several theatres as part of Cineplex Front Row Centre Events and is available through video-on-demand platforms. On Friday it opens in additional theatres.

"By the time the film got made I was doing a lot better," said Hill. "My personal life was much better and things were humming along, but I wasn't sure what to make of the film because I'm so close to it.

"I sent a copy to my dad and he got back to me and he said, 'It's great. A whole bunch of people are going to love it."'

Hill loved it, too, noting Aja stayed "true to the spirit of the book."

"As a novelist, having a film adapted, the thing you most fear is that they'll just deliver something completely toxic that casts shame on the book, and they didn't do that," he said. "They came up with something really heartfelt and nice."

"Horns" was the first time Hill had a movie made out of one of his books, which also include the 2007 novel "Heart-Shaped Box," last year's "NOS4A2" and the 2005 short-story collection "20th Century Ghosts." He also wrote the comic book series "Locke & Key."

"Heart-Shaped Box" was a bigger hit than Hill expected and he said he felt "tremendous euphoria" followed by a "tremendous crash" as he fell into the sophomore slump.

"I actually wound up writing 400 pages of a follow-up novel that I threw away, no good at all. ... It just took me a very long time to find my way to something where I felt it was good," he said.

Hill eventually came to realize what his story needed: the devil, "a character to tempt the other characters and to threaten them, someone to unearth the secrets and send everyone scurrying to defend themselves, to protect themselves, to try to bargain," he said.

"The devil is a tremendously powerful figure, and throwing him into a story is like throwing a grenade -- it can have a tremendously explosive effect on whatever scenario you're exploring."

That's not to say Hill is devoted to any particular faith. In the King household, literature filled that role, he said.

"The dinnertime conversation was always literary conversation, it was always authors and book stores and publishing and characters. Books is sort of the glue that holds my family together."

His dad is religious, though, he added.

"He has that gift where he can quote things from the Bible from memory," said Hill. "In the '50s, he won a Bible competition and he was given this beautiful Bible. That was his prize and he kept it for years and years until I quietly stole it from him, about a decade ago. I think maybe the Bible is one of the few things you can actually steal from someone else where there's no moral penalty to pay.

"I don't think that I would describe myself as a Christian. Maybe I'm more of a snake worshipper."