Joe Hill has certainly come a long way since he was torturing his on-screen father (played by Tom Atkins) via voodoo doll in the classic 1982 horror anthology Creepshow, which was partly willed into existence by Hill’s real-life father, Stephen King. In 2005, Hill followed in his father’s footsteps and became a best-selling author with the short story collection 20th Century Ghosts, his first book published after spending previous years writing stories for various literary magazines. Two years later, Hill published his first full-length novel Heart-Shaped Box and early last year he released his second novel, the horror-tinged, Gothic crime tale Horns. Now Horns is about to become a bonafide motion picture with a noted horror filmmaker at the helm.

Alexandre Aja, the French director of High Tension and the well-received remakes of The Hills Have Eyes and Piranha, has signed on to direct the film adaptation of Horns for Mandalay Pictures, with Hill serving as an executive producer on the project and Scott Bunin writing the screenplay.

Horns tells the story of a 26-year-old man who wakes up one day suffering from a hangover only to discover horns growing out of his head. Believing the horns’ sudden appearance to be connected to the murder of his girlfriend he sets out to solve the mystery.

Hill is also the writer of the comic book series Locke & Key, which was developed as a television series for the Fox Network and even had a pilot made (directed by Mark Romanek) before the network passed on the project.

Plans are for production on Horns to begin in the spring or summer of 2012 before Aja moves on to his next film, the manga-inspired sci-fi adventure Cobra.

[Source: THR]