A couple of literary horror masters can conjure a story of existential fear in the most innocuous situations. Even a family meal at IHOP.

The new Netflix horror movie “In the Tall Grass” (streaming Friday) is based on the 2012 novella by Stephen King and son Joe Hill. It was hatched, rather innocently for a tale of supernatural dread, when Hill flew down to spend time with his dad in Florida and was pretty hungry after getting off the plane.

“He had just finished working on something and I had just finished working on something, and so over pancakes we decided to spend the week and write a story together,” says Hill, whose new short-story collection “Full Throttle” contains “In the Tall Grass.”

Review:Stephen King's new novel 'The Institute' mines familiar ground with psychic kids in duress

Ranked:The very best and worst Stephen King movies (including 'It 2')

Directed by Vincenzo Natali, the movie centers on a pregnant woman (Laysla De Oliveira) and her brother (Avery Whitted), who stop along a rural Kansas road and hear cries for help from a young boy (Will Buie Jr.) amid a huge field of tall grass. The siblings venture in, get separated and lost, and the situation grows more terrifying from there.

King’s books and adaptations speak for themselves – 2017's “It” and its sequel are the biggest horror movies of all time. And Hill’s no stranger himself to the screen, with his novel “Horns” getting the cinematic treatment with Daniel Radcliffe and “NOS4A2” recently finishing up its first season on AMC. But the younger author proudly allows that "one of the grossest things" he’s ever thought up is in “Tall Grass.”

“You're thinking to yourself, ‘He'll never do that in the movie,' and then he did do that in the movie,” says Hill, 47.

King, 72, quickly moves into paternal mode: “We've got to watch what we say, though. No spoilers!”

The two writers, who both love corgis and scaring our socks off, talk to USA TODAY about their creepy collective landscape.

Q: “In the Tall Grass” expands the scope of your novella. What addition did you like most?

Joe Hill: It's like a gory Midwestern “Inception.” It does all this freaky bending with time and space that I love. It's people in an awful situation that gets worse and worse, terrible things happen to them and then there's a final twist of the knife. The movie does go to some really upsetting places, but there's a little more hope in it.

Stephen King: The real hope is the characters say, “I hope I die soon so this awfulness will stop.” That's kind of a “Tales From the Crypt” joke. We sort of send these things off like a kid to college: “I hope you do a good job and everything's great. If you get in trouble, call home.”

Q: So many of your stories have matriculated, it’s pretty much King University at this point. Do you find filmmakers more successfuladapting the short stories or the longer books?

King: With the streaming platforms (and cable TV), somebody can tackle a long novel the way they tackled “NOS4A2” or “Mr. Mercedes.” But with a shorter thing, it's tailor-made for the movies. I think of “Shawshank Redemption” and the upcoming adaptation from Spain of “A Good Marriage.” The original “Children of the Corn” wasn't too bad either.

Hill: It has to do with how they approach the characters. In the case of “It,” there's so much warmth and affection toward the Losers' Club. They get to be funny, they get to have full, rich emotional lives. When the films have failed, it's because they managed to shock you and do disturbing things, but you didn't fall in love with the characters like you did when you read the books.

Q: Describe what it’s like when you guys write together.

Hill: You ever watch the Road Runner cartoons? Wile E. Coyote gets a big crate that says “ACME” on the side, and he pulls it open and inside there's a rocket. He lights the fuse, he climbs on top and it takes off and just about blows his face off. I've written with Dad two times and both times I was like Wile E Coyote hanging onto the rocket.

King: (Laughs) No, I don't think that's exactly true. Good try, son. We look alike and we're interested in the same things, and what we're really like is the Everly Brothers: His style and my style, we don't write the same but we're in harmony with one another. The thing kind of flows naturally. Both times, I felt like I was getting a sweet ride, like I was getting in a Mercedes-Benz because I was with a pro who's somebody I also happen to love a lot.

Q: Your works reference each other: Joe’s “NOS4A2” included references to Pennywise from “It” and the True Knot from “Doctor Sleep.” Might all these stories exist in a shared King family universe?

Hill: People love big shared universes and have tapped into the idea that Dad's universe is as big as the Marvel universe, but it's like for grown-ups. That's been kind of intriguing and contributed to this sudden crush of great films and TV shows based on Dad's stuff.

Q: Joe, your dad took the directing reins himself adapting “Maximum Overdrive.” Would you ever do the same?

Hill: I would direct a remake of “Maximum Overdrive” in a heartbeat. Obviously, the time has come because Tesla is introducing these self-driving trucks.

Q: What piece of advice would you give your director son?

King: Get a film crew that you can communicate with because my guys were all Italian. I learned a lot of profanity in Italian.

Hill: I think the film got a bad rap. I remember watching a totally unrated version of it when I was a little kid and loving it. It had the kid's head popping under a steamroller and I was hooked. From there on, I was all in.