Cannibal Vengeance

by Carl John Lee

CANNIBAL VENGEANCE Deep in the Amazon jungle, a group of missionaries are massacred by an ancient tribe. One boy escapes, and so begins a desperate fight for survival in the most inhospitable place on Earth. CANNIBAL VENGEANCE Dick Ramsey is looking forward to spending Christmas with his two daughters in his isolated jungle compound. He hasn’t seen them for years. But when a mysterious stranger gatecrashes the celebration, the modern world and the Stone Age collide in a blood-drenched nightmare of gut-crunching violence. CANNIBAL VENGEANCE THE BLOOD WILL FLOW IN RIVERS

Genres: Horror, Splatterpunk, Fiction

172 pages, Paperback

Published December 14, 2021

About the author

A New York-based screenwriter, Carl John Lee has written a bunch of movies you've either never seen, or would never admit to seeing.

Inspired by Roger Corman and the golden age of exploitation films, Lee probes deep into the filthy underbelly of America, contrasting his bleak worldview with dark humor.

He has three dogs, two cats, and not a shred of dignity.

Reviews

[Peter Topside · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was just a nonstop bloodbath from start to finish. Axes, guns, knives…all the greatest tools to cause harm were touched on at some point. The characters all had purpose and were fun to experience during this onslaught by angry, cannibalist tribesmen on their drug-financed compound. Yep, you read all that right. And I absolutely hated Teddy. You just wanted him to get massacred the entire time he was on those pages. There are quite a bit of references to physical abuse between him and Joanna, so be warned, but it all gets sorted out in the end. The one thing I wished to see more of was the initial group of missionaries before the tribe went ballistic. The story just jumped ahead to the family at the compound, without a lot of foreplay. It just felt like a bit of a missed opportunity and was way too abbreviated in the very beginning. But beyond that, there is lots of action, gore, and excitement throughout. Oh, and it’s technically a Christmas story, too. Because the holidays always make for a happy ending. Right?!

[Brandon Baker · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a nonstop gore fest and I couldn’t read it fast enough!! The parts at the beginning even made me laugh a bit because it was just so ridiculous.

I’m honestly surprised his books aren’t more popular. They read like movies and are pretty well written imo.

You’ll definitely have to suspend belief for some parts, but this was a crazy violent survive the night horror with a very high body count!

[Stitching Ghost · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one was kinda goofy, what else would you expect from a cannibal story? It had its moments though and it was certainly entertaining enough to keep my attention for an evening. Best part was the autobiographical bit about the author at the end.

3.5 rounded up.

[Steve Stred · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ahhh, everyone’s favorite recluse, ole Uncle Carl has returned and this time he’s decided to share a former screenplay of his that involves a subject I really love – the Amazon.

Over the years, I’ve watched a number of ‘lost in the jungle’ movies and read a number of books, and one thing that’ll never change and that’ll always draw me in – the Amazon (and the jungle) are untamable, unhospitable worlds, where if the Indigenous tribes don’t get you, any number of animals will. And if you manage to stay clear of all of that – the lack of most people’s abilities to find water and food will ultimately get you.

The cult classic ‘Cannibal Holocaust’ surely kicked off this fascination – I may be completely wrong, but personally for me, it did – and it is in that vein that Carl John Lee brings us back to 1978.

What I liked: The story starts off focusing on a Christian Missionary group trying to locate the Sharayomo tribe, to bring them bibles and teach them about their faith. Things go sideways immediately and thus leads us into the crux or meat of the story (pun intended).

The story follows Dick and his much younger wife, Mona, who are preparing to spend Christmas with Dick’s grown daughters, Joanna and Emily. Dick has fled to the darkest corners of the Amazon, living in a fortified mansion, as he continues to lead a life off the books. Joanna is joined by her horrible boyfriend, Teddy, while Emily is joined by her husband, Rod.

Carl John Lee has created a really engaging group of characters here and it speaks to his ability and mastery of prose that he can make these people come alive so quickly and efficiently. Case in point – Rod. Here’s his character description loosely – from California, tanned, dark mustache, dark curly hair, muscular, currently a surgeon, but a former porn star, known for his mighty uh… surgical tool. You immediately picture someone in your mind, and for me this guy sounded like the spitting image of Tom Selleck (although I can’t speak on Magnum PI’s surgical tool!).

The action here is fast and furious and Lee does a great job of even adding a few splashes of humor – light and dark. To use Rod as an example again (and how great is that name!), we get to a point where he is trying to swing like a pendulum out of a window to knock loose a beam. While doing this he chuckles, because his porn nickname was ‘The Pendulum’ due to the way a part of his anatomy moved while he walked.

The ending of this is fantastic and speaks to the nature of these stories – where you hope and root for someone to survive, no matter the horror and damage they see and incur. In fact, there’s a line at the end of a chapter, close to the end of the book that says – ‘The last to live.’ Damn, that would’ve made for a fantastic title to this novel.

What I didn’t like: There are trigger warnings a plenty in this one, but the one that I think gets focused on most (I mean other than the horrific gore and violence) is the relationship abuse. This occurs between Teddy and Joanna and while it works well to really build up Joanna’s character arc, it takes some time before things get ‘sorted.’ I personally wished it would’ve happened sooner!

Why you should buy this: Look, I’m going to shoot straight here. I love Carl John Lee’s books and he’s a fantastic writer (and artist – he actually did the cover for my novel Incarnate) but I think he’s criminally overlooked. If this was a release by a bigger, more known name, I suspect this would be a best seller and one we’d see all over Instagram. I wish I had more clout or power to beg people to go buy this, but I’m a realist.

This book has everything fans of dark fiction want – tension, dread, great characters, survive-at-all-costs plot and some of the most brutal decapitations and death’s you’ll ever read.

This was outstanding and I hope one that really does launch Carl John Lee into becoming a ‘must-read’ author by so many more people.

[Alex | | findingmontauk1 · Rating 5 out of 5]

HOLY BRUTALITY, BATMAN! Carl John Lee comes out of the gates swinging machetes, raising axes, and throwing spears with CANNIBAL VENGEANCE and he never lets up for even a minute. With lots of gore (I mean LOTS of gore) this is an homage to the 70s/80s cannibal exploitation and jungle slasher survivor movies, but Carl John Lee still manages to make it his own with refreshing takes on characters and kill scenes. The way he can stage a scene is fantastic - you do not feel safe at all the entire time you are reading this one. But oh WOW is this story brutal. Guts, brains, entrails, genitals, you name it. Everything is exposed and dripping and bursting all over the place. And, yea, it's a fun time!

And you can add this to your holiday reading as it takes place on Christmas Eve/Christmas. Ho ho ho!

[Alex · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was my second book by Carl John Lee (the first being Psychic Teenage Bloodbath) and I absolutely had a blast with this one!

As you would expect from a cannibal story, there is plenty of gore here! This was a fun and violent ride and couldn't get enough of it.

4/5

[Matt (TeamRedmon) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Balls to the wall horror

I loved this book and will absolutely be reading more from Carl John Lee. Highly recommend for all horror fans that can stomach a lot of gore

[lakshmi · Rating 4 out of 5]

4/5🌟
I don’t think I’ll ever read a Carl John Lee novel and not like it. They always feel so cinematic and well balanced. Almost done reading everything he’s published! Only like 2-3 more books to go I think 🙈

[Brian G Berry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Carl John Lee is rising to become one of my favorite authors. His writing style is engaging and pulls you right into the world's he creates. This latest is right up there with his last two releases. Brutal, visceral, and full of cannibalistic savages. I heard this book was a cross between assault on precinct 13 and cannibal holocaust? Couldn't agree more. Haha. Great read. 5/5

[fish leineweber · Rating 3 out of 5]

the SUSPENSE. the HORROR. the DRAMA. this book was so gross and terrifying, and during the second half i felt like i was in the story. the ending is very sad (as can be expected) but joanna FINALLY got her girlboss moment💪😍💅

[Adam Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really need to space my cannibal novels out more because I know I will remember very little of this next week. Had fun though.

[Andrew Neilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uncle Carl brings the gore again. Also enjoyed the " behind the scenes " of how this novel nearly became a movie back in those glorious years of Italian cannibal movies . I know what you're doing Uncle Carl. Buy wish someone would turn this into a movie. What you have is basically Assault on Precinct 13 but with cannibals or if you want to go further back Rio Bravo and wouldn't enjoy seeing that. Plus you have the ballsy move of setting this during Christmas! A Christmas cannibal story! Who else but Uncle Carl

[Lloyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yeah, this was fun. Read exactly like a ‘bad but actually great’ horror movie. And when I say exactly, I totally mean it, because this took about 1.5 hours to read. Totally violent bloodbath with a tribe of cannibals terrorizing Americans who have no business in the Amazon.

Read the afterword! It had me cracking up.

[elli ⛧ yourspookymom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely loved it. Another Carl John Lee knock out! Might be my favorite of his so far. I loved the sisters & the story was wild and fun. Super immersive and a bloody good time!

[megb · Rating 4 out of 5]

ily Rod🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹🥹

& fuck Teddy. but anyway, this was a fun survive the night horror. some humor, gore, thrill.. you get a little bit of everything

[Britt · Rating 5 out of 5]

i’m a fan of cannibal movies/books, so i had a feeling this would be good and it was! the story takes place in the amazon jungle, where a group of missionaries gets attacked by a tribe. dick ramsey just wants to spend christmas with his daughters, but things go downhill fast. it’s a quick, fast-paced read with lots of action and intense moments. worth a read!

[Sharon Leung · Rating 5 out of 5]

Invigorating

This is a read that you can't put down once you start. It's full of brutal attacks and unforseen circumstance. A family get together turning into the worst possible nightmare you could imagine. You are drawn in and pulled into their world and the need for survival. But things don't always work out as you want them to. Is all hope lost? Also there is Teddy, Joanna's boyfriend. Is he who he perceives to be? He was a great character and atypical of a person like him. My favourite characters have to be the sisters. A living bond and reading of each other. Fighting no matter what for each other. Also I found Rod Emily's husband a great character. A man whom has a great personality as well as the figure ;) lol. A man that nothing stops him from helping to save his wife and her family and stepping up when needed. An incredible read and one of definitely recommend.

[Scott Raphael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fast-moving and the right length

From its title and cover, I expected something very lame or terrible, but I was pleasantly surprised. The book deliberately plays upon schlocky horror films/books of the ‘70s but it does so without sacrificing its own quality. Occasionally humourous, always fast-paced, and effectively developed in terms of character variety and plot, the book doesn’t try to do too much. It’s bloody and violent, and it knows it doesn’t have enough content to be any longer than it is (too many books don’t realize this). Original? No. But entertaining while accomplishing its goal? Absolutely.

[Brian G Berry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wild jungle slaughter!

Carl John Lee is rising to become one of my favorite authors. His writing style is engaging and pulls you right into the world's he creates. This latest is right up there with his last two releases. Brutal, visceral, and full of cannibalistic savages. I heard this book was a cross between assault on precinct 13 and cannibal holocaust? Couldn't agree more. Haha. Great read. 5/5

[Connor Corbett · Rating 5 out of 5]

An absolute cracker of a book.

For a short, slasher, exploitation novel, I couldn't believe how invested I got. Incredible that in 157 pages I was made to care so deeply (and in one case, hate) a cast of characters, when other works of fiction fail to achieve this in double, triple the length.

Cannibal Vengeance is a fast-paced, non-stop thrill ride from start to finish; with the story only letting up for a number of pages to deliver some brilliantly written moments of human connection between the characters. Additionally, I found myself bellowing with laughter, as much of the dialogue is so quick and witty.

I loved the depth we got for the whole roster of characters; fleshing them out so naturally in the short space of time. The kills are so much fun, but you really do have to care for (or root against) the people in the story for it to have some level of impact or engagement. Cannibal Vengeance had this in excess.

True to it's warning, the horror was extreme. Testicle and eyeball popping, heads exploding, guts spilling. This novel had it all. But it was so much more!

Sure, you have the shock and awe, but you also have a really fun story. Packed with careful set up and plenty of playoff, it's a great, small-scale thriller that I was more or less unable to put down. I stopped reading to eat a quick lunch and then got back to it. If not for my overwhelming hunger, I would have read it on a oner.

I think it was a great decision to have two stories initially running concurrently, so that while we were building up some characterisation for the main cast (which in itself was a delight to read), we kept things ticking over with a couple of kills. This ensured that your attention would be wrapped from the get go, and never released.

I'm excited to read the rest of John Lee's works, and I'd heartily recommend reading this gruesome, crazy, brutal tale.

[fin-da-lin · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5

oh my shit, that was pretty crazy, but also funny, which was weird, definitely did not expect to laugh my ass off at a cock so giant it was nicknamed The Pendulum 😭😭

was pretty good though, definitely recommend

edit :

just thought of this, i don't really think that his writing was good, like first of all mona (i think that was her name ??) getting killed before telling the code was so basic, and rod swimming over to the boat teddy was in and then thinking 'omg how did I survive the anaconda, caiman, and piranha infested waters ??' AFTER the anaconda, caiman, and piranha infested waters was already mentioned as a reason why they couldn't go in the water was kinda weird ya know

BUT ! this doesn't change my review or rating because i still loved it lmao

i feel like the purpose was to be gory and kinda funny instead of like genuinely good ya know, at least that's what it was to me when i was reading it

[Whitney · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was another fantastic read from Uncle Carl! But this one, please mind the trigger warnings.

It starts out simple enough, people living in a land they have no business being in, and the consequences that come with that.

The family that the story is centered around is incredibly toxic, and there is something fun and satisfying in seeing them struggle a little bit. I did struggle to read about the abusive marriage that is referenced throughout the entire novel. While it was nice to see how that all worked out, it was kind of just gross to read about the details surrounding this physically and emotionally abusive relationship throughout the entire novel.

Best character was Rod. 100%. Dude was a solid character, and he was the strongest and coolest one. I did find the book rather predictable in terms of survivors, or lack thereof, but it was a fantastic time of reading. The gore was so over the top, but it made it even more enjoyable somehow.

[K D Davies · Rating 5 out of 5]

Graham is deep in the Amazon forest alongside the brothers and sisters of Christ. They are on a mission to find the Sharayomo tribe to introduce them to the glory of Christianity.
Dick and Mona just want a quiet Christmas with Dicks daughters in his jungle home.
For both groups things very quickly descend into utter carnage.
This read was super fun! I found Grahams internal monologue funny. There is delicious body horror. But you will need to check your triggers Joanna’s early story broke me 💔
Familial love blooms from the pages like spores of a fungus.
I hated Teddy’s character and I found myself rooting for Emily and Jo the whole time! What’s the song?
‘Sisters are doing it for themselves’

[Sidney Shiv · Rating 5 out of 5]

When the soul survivor of a group of Christian missionaries in the Amazon leads a tribe of bloodthirsty cannibals to the fortified compound of a wealthy exile as he celebrates the holidays with his daughters, all hell breaks loose.

Cannibal Vengeance by Carl John Lee is the grind house cannibal flick you always wanted to see, but was never made.

This exciting novel was adapted from Lee’s original screenplay. The script almost came to fruition as a film but, like many potential films, died on the vine early on in production.

The book is lightning paced, action packed, nail-bitingly suspenseful, and not without humour.

[Nick LeBlanc · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.75 stars rounded up.

Quick, dirty, stupid. Pretty much what you’d expect in an Amazonian cannibal horror story. Not meant for folks who can’t help but get their panties in a bunch over pulpy exploitation genre tropes. Sodergren is an extremely competent writer who sometimes gets a little too high on his own supply. Though the plot is more indulgent here than his proper output under his own name, I ironically think this is one of his better edited novels. He’s got me though, I’m a fan slowly working my way through the bibliography. Good way to spend an afternoon while the kids were sleeping. Also: a covert X-mas horror! Nice touch.

[Lydia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Starting on a side note, I look forward to Uncle Carl's Afterword chapter just as much as I love opening a new book of his. His life needs to be a book in itself. Anyway, I digress...

How can these grotesque, heart palpitating books have so much goddamn heart and humanity? This book was about 150 pages long, yet the bond and relationship between the sisters was so real and visceral it was just as striking as the gory carnage. This was so much fun, so unforgiving, and rounds off wonderfully at the end.

PS Rod needs his own prequel.

[Isaac Ferguson · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first dive into Sodergren’s alter ego: old uncle Carl. This is a fast paced, nasty homage to 70s/80s Italian cannibal films. Not as good as Sodergren’s top tier for me, but on par with The Forgotten Island. In other words: this kind of rips.

The first two thirds are decent but it has the kind of character set ups that Sodergren does well, but could probably write in his sleep. That last third though? Relentless, brutal, awesome. Big fan. I’m honestly always cool with a set up-y and decent first half if the second half is a face melter, so I’m a happy guy.

[Jack Stowell · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the last Carl John Lee book I had yet to read, so I'm glad to have finally completed the whole works. It's incredibly gory and violent, as you'd expect from a CJL book, and it really does feel like a found 70s Italian horror script that wasn't made. It's by no means going to change your life or be remembered as a classic - the plot is kind of thin and unfortunately my book had several missing words - but it's a fine, fun enough way to spend a couple hours if you like gore and ultraviolence.

[Kristen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this in a matter of 3 hours! I couldn’t put this one down!
It was exciting, filled with all the gore that ones heart could want, plus some & and a bad ass adventure that takes place in the Amazon Rainforest!
Think about a zombie apocalypse, but instead of real world towns, it’s cannibals that you are fighting for survival and in a rainforest….
Pick this one up and sit down, and plan to be there h til you are done!

[Ernesto In Rome · Rating 5 out of 5]

A family reunion, at Christmas, how sweet. Except we're deep in the Amazon jungle and some entitled missionaries have annoyed a particularly protective and feared local tribe, who will have their revenge. A great cast of characters romp through this fast-paced 80s grindhouse flavoured tale. Great fun!