Author Matt Hilton on Horror Writing, Cautionary Tales and Dark Basements
by Severn House on 1 October 2025
Spooky season is here, so what better time to sit down with one of Severn House’s many brilliant horror authors! We asked Matt Hilton, author of Wicked Jenny and The Executioner Box, about what scares him and how to survive a horror novel.
Wicked Jenny and The Executioner Box are both entries in your horror anthology series based on Cautionary Tales. What drew you to writing horror?
I’ve been a big fan of horror since I was a small child. I cut my teeth writing horror, sword & sorcery fantasy and adjacent genres, before turning my hand to contemporary thrillers, where I found success with my Joe Hunter series, and my Tess Grey and Po Villere series with Severn House. Throughout writing those 23 books, and several standalone thrillers, I never lost my interest, or desire, to write and publish in the horror genre.
When I was given the opportunity to write my A Cautionary Tale series for Severn House, I jumped at it. For years I’d been ruminating over how I could twist some of the scariest warnings from my childhood into contemporary horror/thriller novels, and thought that I could do so by bringing them into the here and now in the very place that I grew up.
A public information film warning children of the dangers of water screened in the 1970s called The Spirit of Dark and Lonely Water terrified me as a child. I always wanted to write a tale influenced by it, which became Wicked Jenny.
As a child I was often warned by my parents not to be greedy or to touch certain things (as a little boy, I almost died when I ignored a warning and pinched a packet of custard powder from the pantry thinking it was sherbert, only for the custard to solidify in my throat and mouth and almost choke me to death), or to be a good boy and go to sleep or the bogeyman would get me (this warning didn’t help much, seeing as I was already scared of the dark). I’ve used all of these personal cautionary tales taught to me as a boy in this series, and have more to come.
Who are the horror authors that influenced you the most?
I was as much influenced by the scary ghost stories told to me by my father, and watching the double-bills of horror movies broadcast by BBC2 in the mid-1970s and early 1980s (I was young but loved them and was allowed to stay up until the wee small hours to watch them) as I was by authors at that time. But notable books do stay in my memory like The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty, and The Howling books by Gary Brandner – I’ve a sneaking suspicion I read those on the back of watching the movies too.
I also read some of the early horror masters like Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, and the pulp and weird fiction writers like Robert E. Howard, and these greatly influenced my early writing style. Later I discovered Stephen King and Dean Koontz. Koontz was, and remains, a huge influence on me.
How do your favourite horror books differ from the ones you write?
I enjoy a wide range of horror. I particularly love atmospheric horror novels, and would love to pen a truly skin-crawling gothic ghost story at some point. For my Cautionary Tales novels, I’m aiming for a more grounded horror, tales that happen in a recognisable, real world, where the supernatural aspects aren’t too overt. I hope that the stories are believable in that sense, and therefore more scary when readers figure out how closely we skate to the ‘other’ world in our day to day lives – unless we are cautious and take heed to the warnings of those in the know (usually our parents, ha ha.)
You must enjoy writing horror – why is that? Is it in some way cathartic?
I do love writing, reading and watching horror. I’m not drawn to blood and gore as such, though I do enjoy a well-made slasher or Zombie movie on occasion. I prefer the creepy movies, the ones that are more psychologically disturbing than filled with jump scares.
I don’t enjoy rollercoasters, bungee jumping or any other physical way to get an adrenalin buzz, I get mine from reading, observing and writing. Sometimes when conjuring a scene, I feel that sensation of dread at the pit of my stomach, and throughout it bubbles away, until the endorphins are released and I’m left a little shaken and starry-eyed. (I must stress this is not a common effect, and isn’t harmful to my health or sanity.)
What makes a truly scary villain/monster?
I love to see Kong rampaging through New York, or Godzilla stomping through Tokyo; I love it when Dracula, Frankenstein’s monster, or The Wolfman, turns up, but none of these induce fear in me. I get a kick from ghost and supernatural/demonic movies, and am currently enjoying the Conjuring movie series. But for me the truly monstrous, scary, villainous, are the monsters grounded more in reality (or near human): Hannibal Lecter, Mick Taylor, Art the Clown, Michael Myers. All are far more frightening to me, because – although exaggerated – they resemble the horrors you might meet in real life. I used to be a police officer. Certain people made me more nervous than the creatures lurking in dark places ever did/still do.
Have you ever scared yourself while writing?
I’ve often felt that sense of dread I mentioned earlier, that often builds to a form of nervous excitement, but I’m rarely scared. However, I did write a book called The Shadows Call based on my experiences living in a potentially haunted house. I wove my personal terrifying experiences into the plot and built a fictional horror tale around them. Reliving those experiences through writing them often induced a shiver or two. I am an open-minded sceptic, ready to entertain the possibility of high strangeness, but I don’t mind admitting that I’m also a bit of a scaredy cat, and still afraid of the dark.
I challenge my fears by visiting and investigating possibly haunted places. I’ve experienced a few scary, and mind-blowing, experiences over the years, and try to use them in my writing to add a level of believability to the paranormal.
If you were the main character in one of your Cautionary Tales books, how would you survive?
I’d be cautious, obey the posted warnings, and I would never enter the dark basement alone (actually, being a bit of a ghost hunter, I probably would ha ha!).
