There are some very notable differences between the book and movie versions of Horns. The dark fantasy novel, written by Joe Hill, was published in 2010, and the Canadian-American horror film adaptation—directed by Alexandre Aja—came out in 2014. The general plot of both versions centers on Ignatius “Ig” Perrish, a 26-year-old man falsely accused of raping and killing his girlfriend, Merrin Williams. Ig wakes up one morning with horns growing from his head, and finds out that they give him the ability to learn people’s darkest secrets. He tries to use this power to track down Merrin’s actual murderer.
The book—which was nominated for the 2010 Bram Stoker Award for Best Novel—features 50 chapters. The movie, starring Daniel Radcliffe, mostly holds steadfast to the main plot points of the novel, but there are some significant changes. For one, while the book switches back and forth between timelines, the movie has a mostly linear narrative. In the book, Merrin’s murder happened a year ago, while the movie has it only a few months in the past, with reporters in town covering the ongoing investigation. What’s more, the movie is set in Washington state rather than New Hampshire.
Additionally, some characters’ backgrounds are tweaked in the movie: Glenna works at a dive bar rather than a salon, Hannity gets promoted to a cop, and Lee is a public defender instead of a conservative politician’s aide. Also, in the book, Merrin’s sister had died from cancer, but her parents are alive—in the movie, her mother is the one who died from cancer, and Merrin lives alone with her father and has no sister. Yet, there are even bigger differences between the two versions.
Horns: Biggest Differences Between The Movie & Joe Hill's Book
Heavily portrayed in both the book and the movie is the treehouse. In the book, the treehouse is a “treehouse of the mind”, which Ig and Merrin had discovered while hiking in the woods. They’d go back to search for it again and again, but would never find it—though, of course, readers later learn that Ig had actually gained his horns at the treehouse while in an inebriated state. In the movie, the treehouse is a physical setting, found by Ig when he was a child, and he and Merrin spend a lot of time there.
The treehouse is the setting of the ending of both versions of Horns—though they are extremely different. In the movie, Ig dies after turning into a demonic monster and killing Lee, who was found to be Merrin’s murderer, and is reunited with Merrin in an afterlife. In the book, it’s more complex; after killing Lee, an injured Ig is restored to health. He finds the cherry tree that had held the treehouse, and discovers that a line of fire has reached it from the foundry—a key setting where Ig often retreats to and learns how to utilize his horns. The treehouse ends up reappearing beyond the flames, and Ig climbs up the cherry tree to enter it, finding himself at a wedding party with Merrin waiting for him to join.