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The Tribe
Warning! This is a taste of horror not for the squeamish...
The evil begins at an ordinary house in the suburbs. When neighbors see lights burning they call to investigate, and what they find is beyond their wildest nightmares - the hideous remains of a cannibal feast.
A car prowls the city at night, in search of fresh victims. In a lonely mansion diabolic house-guests are waiting for new arrivals. Now a sickening terror creeps across the country. And ancient practices of death are revived to glut the loathsome appetites of The Tribe.
The evil begins at an ordinary house in the suburbs. When neighbors see lights burning they call to investigate, and what they find is beyond their wildest nightmares - the hideous remains of a cannibal feast.
A car prowls the city at night, in search of fresh victims. In a lonely mansion diabolic house-guests are waiting for new arrivals. Now a sickening terror creeps across the country. And ancient practices of death are revived to glut the loathsome appetites of The Tribe.
- GenresHorror
187 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1981
1 person is currently reading
36 people want to read
About the author
Glenn Chandler
20 books7 followersGlenn Chandler is a Scottish playwright and novelist. He has written plays for theatre and radio, original screenplays for television and films, television series, non-fiction and novels. His best known work is the Scottish television detective series Taggart, which is broadcast around the world.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
March 24, 2023
I gobbled up this cannibal gorefest ;). Horror is my favourite genre but it’s also my most disappointing genre as it is either too unrealistic or the victims do stupid things instead of getting the hell out of there. But not this one. I rate this up there with my all time favourite horror movie: Texas Chainsaw Massacre. There is a huge death toll on the menu, the gore is a splattering of disgusting filth you couldn’t imagine, and to top it off, there’s suspense, cliffhangers, tension, more gore, and a jaw dropping plot.
The Tribe is clever like Jaws. Chandler took something that people weren’t originally afraid of, created a fear, and left generations of readers to sweat on it. There’s no subtle what would happen if…it’s straight into the boiling pot and messy.
There were a few victims that I thought for sure would manage to escape, and be the kick a*se heroes/heroines that slay but not even.
I also appreciate that the story isn’t culturally offensive. They do reference a culture that used to partake in cannibalism. But they took it away from that place, leaving it as the root source, and took it to England to be villainised by Anglo-Saxons.
I can’t recommend this enough if you are into gore horror. Such a rare find.
The Tribe is clever like Jaws. Chandler took something that people weren’t originally afraid of, created a fear, and left generations of readers to sweat on it. There’s no subtle what would happen if…it’s straight into the boiling pot and messy.
There were a few victims that I thought for sure would manage to escape, and be the kick a*se heroes/heroines that slay but not even.
I also appreciate that the story isn’t culturally offensive. They do reference a culture that used to partake in cannibalism. But they took it away from that place, leaving it as the root source, and took it to England to be villainised by Anglo-Saxons.
I can’t recommend this enough if you are into gore horror. Such a rare find.
January 20, 2020
This review first appeared on scifiandscary.com: https://www.scifiandscary.com/the-tri...
I first read ‘The Tribe’ in about 1990, and while I didn’t recall much about the book, I definitely remembered the stark warning on the back cover “WARNING! This is a taste of horror not for the squeamish…” That disclaimer is more of a tantalising tease than something actually meant to put people off, and it worked on 17 year old me. Rereading the book some 30 years later, I found that it’s not just hyperbole, this really is an unusually nasty book.
‘The Tribe’ tells the story (in fairly incoherent fashion, it must be said) of a series of murders plaguing the UK, the twist being that the murderer adds insult to injury by then cooking and eating their victim. A suitably stolid copper investigates, and it transpires there is a link between the killers, they were all part of the same anthropological research group which visited a remote cannibal tribe some years in the past. The mystery element plays a definite second fiddle to the horror though, which is no bad thing as the plotting is pretty confusing. The horror, on the other hand, is graphic, to the point and often shocking. What makes the violence even more disturbing is that it is often inflicted on loved ones. The excellent opening of the book features the police examining the viciously mutilated corpse of a young girl who has been killed and partially eaten by her father.
Where the book is much less successful is, well, everywhere else really. As mentioned above the plotting is scattershot, characters come and go and some that feel like they will be important just fade away. Towards the end the book adopts a dreamlike quality which is quite effective, although it’s still not clear to me whether it is deliberate or just the result of bad writing.
My view is that cheap horror of this type works best when the story works as a simple bridge between the scenes of violence. Shaun Hutson, whose novel ‘Slugs’ I’ll be reviewing next month is a master of this. Glenn Chandler, it turns out, isn’t. In ‘The Tribe’ that bridge is far too complicated and confusing, meaning that reading the story feels like a chore at times. That’s a shame, because when ‘The Tribe’ kicks into gear and gets nasty it’s very good indeed.
I first read ‘The Tribe’ in about 1990, and while I didn’t recall much about the book, I definitely remembered the stark warning on the back cover “WARNING! This is a taste of horror not for the squeamish…” That disclaimer is more of a tantalising tease than something actually meant to put people off, and it worked on 17 year old me. Rereading the book some 30 years later, I found that it’s not just hyperbole, this really is an unusually nasty book.
‘The Tribe’ tells the story (in fairly incoherent fashion, it must be said) of a series of murders plaguing the UK, the twist being that the murderer adds insult to injury by then cooking and eating their victim. A suitably stolid copper investigates, and it transpires there is a link between the killers, they were all part of the same anthropological research group which visited a remote cannibal tribe some years in the past. The mystery element plays a definite second fiddle to the horror though, which is no bad thing as the plotting is pretty confusing. The horror, on the other hand, is graphic, to the point and often shocking. What makes the violence even more disturbing is that it is often inflicted on loved ones. The excellent opening of the book features the police examining the viciously mutilated corpse of a young girl who has been killed and partially eaten by her father.
Where the book is much less successful is, well, everywhere else really. As mentioned above the plotting is scattershot, characters come and go and some that feel like they will be important just fade away. Towards the end the book adopts a dreamlike quality which is quite effective, although it’s still not clear to me whether it is deliberate or just the result of bad writing.
My view is that cheap horror of this type works best when the story works as a simple bridge between the scenes of violence. Shaun Hutson, whose novel ‘Slugs’ I’ll be reviewing next month is a master of this. Glenn Chandler, it turns out, isn’t. In ‘The Tribe’ that bridge is far too complicated and confusing, meaning that reading the story feels like a chore at times. That’s a shame, because when ‘The Tribe’ kicks into gear and gets nasty it’s very good indeed.
August 20, 2018
I came across this book online and, along with the other horror book that this author wrote, decided to buy it just because of the cover. I went in to it without any real expectations - other than hoping for a book full of gore. I opted to sit with a few beers and see what it was all about.
I ended up having quite a lot of fun with the Tribe. From the first page to the last, it was full of violence, bodily mutilation and cannibalism. If you're a fan of gore, then this is certainly for you. I did struggle somewhat to engage with the first half of the book - Chandler spent a while introducing a whole host of charectars only to have them brutally kill, or be killed by another. Not necessarily a bad thing. All the while, the police search for the murderers and try to link the killings together. It was more than enough to keep me reading as it was clear that it was building to something quite exciting.
The payoff was worth it. The Tribe ended up being more than a cannibalistic gorefest. I was actually very surprised with the overall writing, characterisation and style of the book. It does not come as a surprise to me to learn that Chandler, after releasing two horror books, went on to have a very succesful career in television.
I give this book four out of five and a huge recommendation to anyone who likes a book that carries a kick.
I ended up having quite a lot of fun with the Tribe. From the first page to the last, it was full of violence, bodily mutilation and cannibalism. If you're a fan of gore, then this is certainly for you. I did struggle somewhat to engage with the first half of the book - Chandler spent a while introducing a whole host of charectars only to have them brutally kill, or be killed by another. Not necessarily a bad thing. All the while, the police search for the murderers and try to link the killings together. It was more than enough to keep me reading as it was clear that it was building to something quite exciting.
The payoff was worth it. The Tribe ended up being more than a cannibalistic gorefest. I was actually very surprised with the overall writing, characterisation and style of the book. It does not come as a surprise to me to learn that Chandler, after releasing two horror books, went on to have a very succesful career in television.
I give this book four out of five and a huge recommendation to anyone who likes a book that carries a kick.
December 16, 2018
DNF.
Gave up 140 pages into a 190 page book. A very strong start, but the writing becomes increasingly odd. The main character disappears for about 80 pages, during which we are introduced to a whole host of new folk who all die in one chapter. Then we finally meet two potential main characters, who piss about for 50(!) pages before ALSO dying!
After THAT - well over halfway through the book - we are introduced to ANOTHER two potential main characters, at which point I’d had enough.
Life’s too short.
Gave up 140 pages into a 190 page book. A very strong start, but the writing becomes increasingly odd. The main character disappears for about 80 pages, during which we are introduced to a whole host of new folk who all die in one chapter. Then we finally meet two potential main characters, who piss about for 50(!) pages before ALSO dying!
After THAT - well over halfway through the book - we are introduced to ANOTHER two potential main characters, at which point I’d had enough.
Life’s too short.
September 29, 2024
3.5 stars. A meandering but effective dose of British horror, written by an actual playwright and with a charmingly ghoulish backcover (it's categorized "FICTION Nasty"). Tribe has the familiar format of a Shaun Hutson animals run amok novel, with a series of violent episodes of cannibalism linked by a threadbare plot.
The balance and pacing seems off, though, as our main characters spend a lot of time out of action and these vignettes about interchangeable cannibals dominate (although, of course, that's what most readers are here for). We end up with a bit too many anonymous policemen in the mix to care about all of them, and an ending that's somewhere between anticlimax and cliffhanger (for a sequel that was never forthcoming).
It feels weird to say a book like this has class, but there is a certain British reserve to it all compared to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. There, the fear was that there's something as entirely Other as Leatherface out there. Here, it's that a British lord could also be a flesh-muncher--like a blood-soaked Moriarty, he gets a long speech about why he's doing what he's doing and tries to force a nubile lady to be his bride as would-be heroes dash to the rescue. Not bad, but interesting. He's also a bit gay, for extra depraved aristocrat points.
(Oddly, the author seems to have made a career of writing stage plays with gay themes--you wonder if this was all meant to be taken that seriously or if he'd decry the whole thing as reactionary in modern times.)
Your mileage may vary on how scary shrunken heads are. They've been popping up as a sight gag for so long that it's a bit hard to credit them as the main source of horror, especially when they start rolling around...
The balance and pacing seems off, though, as our main characters spend a lot of time out of action and these vignettes about interchangeable cannibals dominate (although, of course, that's what most readers are here for). We end up with a bit too many anonymous policemen in the mix to care about all of them, and an ending that's somewhere between anticlimax and cliffhanger (for a sequel that was never forthcoming).
It feels weird to say a book like this has class, but there is a certain British reserve to it all compared to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. There, the fear was that there's something as entirely Other as Leatherface out there. Here, it's that a British lord could also be a flesh-muncher--like a blood-soaked Moriarty, he gets a long speech about why he's doing what he's doing and tries to force a nubile lady to be his bride as would-be heroes dash to the rescue. Not bad, but interesting. He's also a bit gay, for extra depraved aristocrat points.
(Oddly, the author seems to have made a career of writing stage plays with gay themes--you wonder if this was all meant to be taken that seriously or if he'd decry the whole thing as reactionary in modern times.)
Your mileage may vary on how scary shrunken heads are. They've been popping up as a sight gag for so long that it's a bit hard to credit them as the main source of horror, especially when they start rolling around...
December 18, 2021
Une friandise sucrée pour le lecteur, fort salée pour les protagonistes. Sans concession. Que demander de plus ?
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews