What do you think?
Rate this book
Cannibals
Cannibals [Mass Market Paperback] Smith, Guy N.
Paperback
First published January 1, 1976
3 people are currently reading
319 people want to read
About the author
Guy N. Smith
175 books298 followersI was born on November 21, 1939, in the small village of Hopwas, near Tamworth, Staffordshire, England. My mother was a pre-war historical novelist (E. M. Weale) and she always encouraged me to write.
I was first published at the age of 12 in The Tettenhall Observer, a local weekly newspaper. Between 1952-57 I wrote 56 stories for them, many serialized. In 1990 I collated these into a book entitled Fifty Tales from the Fifties.
My father was a dedicated bank manager and I was destined for banking from birth. I accepted it but never found it very interesting. During the early years when I was working in Birmingham, I spent most of my lunch hours in the Birmingham gun quarter. I would have loved to have served an apprenticeship in the gun trade but my father would not hear of it.
Shooting (hunting) was my first love, and all my spare time was spent in this way. In 1961 I designed and made a 12-bore shotgun, intending to follow it up with six more, but I did not have the money to do this. I still use the Guy N. Smith short-barrelled magnum. During 1960-67 I operated a small shotgun cartridge loading business but this finished when my components suppliers closed down and I could no longer obtain components at competitive prices.
My writing in those days only concerned shooting. I wrote regularly for most of the sporting magazines, interspersed with fiction for such magazines as the legendary London Mystery Selection, a quarterly anthology for which I contributed 18 stories between 1972-82.
In 1972 I launched my second hand bookselling business which eventually became Black Hill Books. Originally my intention was to concentrate on this and maybe build it up to a full-time business which would enable me to leave banking. Although we still have this business, writing came along and this proved to be the vehicle which gave me my freedom.
I wrote a horror novel for the New English Library in 1974 entitled Werewolf by Moonlight. This was followed by a couple more, but it was Night of the Crabs in 1976 which really launched me as a writer. It was a bestseller, spawning five sequels, and was followed by another 60 or so horror novels through to the mid-1990's. Amicus bought the film rights to Crabs in 1976 and this gave me the chance to leave banking and by my own place, including my shoot, on the Black Hill.
The Guy N. Smith Fan Club was formed in 1990 and still has an active membership. We hold a convention every year at my home which is always well attended.
Around this time I became Poland's best-selling author. Phantom Press published two GNS books each month, mostly with print runs of around 100,000.
I have written much, much more than just horror; crime and mystery (as Gavin Newman), and children's animal novels (as Jonathan Guy). I have written a dozen or so shooting and countryside books, a book on Writing Horror Fiction (A. & C. Black). In 1997 my first full length western novel, The Pony Riders was published by Pinnacle in the States.
With 100-plus books to my credit, I was looking for new challenges. In 1999 I formed my own publishing company and began to publish my own books. They did rather well and gave me a lot of satisfaction. We plan to publish one or two every year.
Still regretting that I had not served an apprenticeship in the gun trade, the best job of my life dropped into my lap in 1999 when I was offered the post of Gun Editor of The Countryman's Weekly, a weekly magazine which covers all field sports. This entails my writing five illustrated feature articles a week on guns, cartridges, deer stalking, big game hunting etc.
Alongside this we have expanded our mail order second hand crime fiction business, still publish a few books, and I find as much time as possible for shooting.
Jean, my wife, helps with the business. Our four children, Rowan, Tara, Gavin and Angus have all moved away from home but they visit on a regular basis.
I would not want to live anywhere other than m
I was first published at the age of 12 in The Tettenhall Observer, a local weekly newspaper. Between 1952-57 I wrote 56 stories for them, many serialized. In 1990 I collated these into a book entitled Fifty Tales from the Fifties.
My father was a dedicated bank manager and I was destined for banking from birth. I accepted it but never found it very interesting. During the early years when I was working in Birmingham, I spent most of my lunch hours in the Birmingham gun quarter. I would have loved to have served an apprenticeship in the gun trade but my father would not hear of it.
Shooting (hunting) was my first love, and all my spare time was spent in this way. In 1961 I designed and made a 12-bore shotgun, intending to follow it up with six more, but I did not have the money to do this. I still use the Guy N. Smith short-barrelled magnum. During 1960-67 I operated a small shotgun cartridge loading business but this finished when my components suppliers closed down and I could no longer obtain components at competitive prices.
My writing in those days only concerned shooting. I wrote regularly for most of the sporting magazines, interspersed with fiction for such magazines as the legendary London Mystery Selection, a quarterly anthology for which I contributed 18 stories between 1972-82.
In 1972 I launched my second hand bookselling business which eventually became Black Hill Books. Originally my intention was to concentrate on this and maybe build it up to a full-time business which would enable me to leave banking. Although we still have this business, writing came along and this proved to be the vehicle which gave me my freedom.
I wrote a horror novel for the New English Library in 1974 entitled Werewolf by Moonlight. This was followed by a couple more, but it was Night of the Crabs in 1976 which really launched me as a writer. It was a bestseller, spawning five sequels, and was followed by another 60 or so horror novels through to the mid-1990's. Amicus bought the film rights to Crabs in 1976 and this gave me the chance to leave banking and by my own place, including my shoot, on the Black Hill.
The Guy N. Smith Fan Club was formed in 1990 and still has an active membership. We hold a convention every year at my home which is always well attended.
Around this time I became Poland's best-selling author. Phantom Press published two GNS books each month, mostly with print runs of around 100,000.
I have written much, much more than just horror; crime and mystery (as Gavin Newman), and children's animal novels (as Jonathan Guy). I have written a dozen or so shooting and countryside books, a book on Writing Horror Fiction (A. & C. Black). In 1997 my first full length western novel, The Pony Riders was published by Pinnacle in the States.
With 100-plus books to my credit, I was looking for new challenges. In 1999 I formed my own publishing company and began to publish my own books. They did rather well and gave me a lot of satisfaction. We plan to publish one or two every year.
Still regretting that I had not served an apprenticeship in the gun trade, the best job of my life dropped into my lap in 1999 when I was offered the post of Gun Editor of The Countryman's Weekly, a weekly magazine which covers all field sports. This entails my writing five illustrated feature articles a week on guns, cartridges, deer stalking, big game hunting etc.
Alongside this we have expanded our mail order second hand crime fiction business, still publish a few books, and I find as much time as possible for shooting.
Jean, my wife, helps with the business. Our four children, Rowan, Tara, Gavin and Angus have all moved away from home but they visit on a regular basis.
I would not want to live anywhere other than m
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
April 15, 2020
There was a hint of Jack Ketchum's Off Season about this inbred cannibal tale set among a backdrop of isolation and ignorance. Not only is there stomach churning gore and nightmare inducing feeding scenes but there's also a deranged and disturbing form of copulation and an omnipresent threat of dread throughout; some of the hallmarks of Ketchum's similarly-themed book.
I'm a big fan of Guy N Smith's horror (Accursed is one of my favorites) and this book did not disappoint. The tension was intense, the characters developed just enough to care about(only just - but that's okay given most end up as dismembered meat set to boil), and the setting and plot equally well defined and written.
The sheer ignorance of the small town community which, for hundreds of years harbored the deformed inbred populace is at once frustrating to read and a brilliant plot device (you really want the cannibals to eat each and every one of them). When some of those townsfolk meat (get it?) their end, the result is nothing short of satisfying.
The stars of the show, those crudely malformed and murderous mountain dwelling cannibals, are truly menacing. Everything about them screams scary; the way they look (the cover to this edition is 100% accurate), their limited forms of communication and intelligence, to their hunter-gatherer nature; it's a brutal and efficient storytelling technique to scare the living daylight out of the reader.
Cannibals is one of the best horror novels I've read - I only wish Guy N Smith wrote more!
I'm a big fan of Guy N Smith's horror (Accursed is one of my favorites) and this book did not disappoint. The tension was intense, the characters developed just enough to care about(only just - but that's okay given most end up as dismembered meat set to boil), and the setting and plot equally well defined and written.
The sheer ignorance of the small town community which, for hundreds of years harbored the deformed inbred populace is at once frustrating to read and a brilliant plot device (you really want the cannibals to eat each and every one of them). When some of those townsfolk meat (get it?) their end, the result is nothing short of satisfying.
The stars of the show, those crudely malformed and murderous mountain dwelling cannibals, are truly menacing. Everything about them screams scary; the way they look (the cover to this edition is 100% accurate), their limited forms of communication and intelligence, to their hunter-gatherer nature; it's a brutal and efficient storytelling technique to scare the living daylight out of the reader.
Cannibals is one of the best horror novels I've read - I only wish Guy N Smith wrote more!
November 10, 2014
The long deserted Caelogy Hall in the small village of Turbury has new residents. Martyn Hamilton keeps his gates locked, installs a fierce alsatian and shuns all contact with the village.
He also installs a bell in his chapel, a bell which rings with a frequency that jars the senses, changes peoples' character and brings on brain haemorrhage and death. Even the deaf are able to hear it. People start dying, going insane and nothing they can do seems to have any effect on their chances to stop the bell.
This is the dark secret of a remote Highland village - a secret kept safe until a local fisherman builds some vacation chalets to attract tourists. The shameful conspiracy of silence is shattered - as the horrendous creatures shamble from their lair to mutilate and kill the unsuspecting visitors.
He also installs a bell in his chapel, a bell which rings with a frequency that jars the senses, changes peoples' character and brings on brain haemorrhage and death. Even the deaf are able to hear it. People start dying, going insane and nothing they can do seems to have any effect on their chances to stop the bell.
This is the dark secret of a remote Highland village - a secret kept safe until a local fisherman builds some vacation chalets to attract tourists. The shameful conspiracy of silence is shattered - as the horrendous creatures shamble from their lair to mutilate and kill the unsuspecting visitors.
July 25, 2023
When Doug Geddis gets the idea to build holiday chalets in Invercurie, he puts the tiny village on the map, so to speak; most everyone has never heard of it, let alone visited. But there was a reason for that, and the villagers are not happy with Dave, doing anything and everything they can to blight his project.
"Strangers were not welcome in Invercurie, never had been, and never would be."
Dave is persistent however, ignoring the warnings and ire of the villagers. He eventually finishes his chalets and runs ads in the papers. Before long, he has his first customers - Eddie and Sarah.
Mere days go by before the vacationing couple realizes something is wrong with this isolated village. The locals are hostile to them, they hear scratching and grunting at their door at night - Dave telling them it's feral dogs - and they are forbidden from walking up to the mountains. However, when Eddie, absolutely entranced with the caves up in the mountains, ignores the warnings, he disappears, never returning the to chalet that night.
When the next vacationing family arrives, they share similar frightening experiences, plus their dog is torn apart when it's left tied outside at night. Then, the unthinkable happens, and their young son goes missing, last seen headed in the direction of the mountains.
When the last set of vacationers arrive, the others are frantic - their loved ones are missing and they're sure something very disturbing is living in those caves up in the mountains. The remaining holiday-goers band together, vowing to all stick together and go up to the caves to help retrieve their missing friends and family. As it turns out, they're very right - something does live in those caves. Cannibalistic, inbred mutants - and they're very hungry.
-----------------
This is my 3rd Guy N. Smith book - I was worried going into it I'd dislike it, because I didn't care for the last book I read by him very much. However, I was pleasantly surprised that the story inside lived up to the cover. A really good read, with the usual dreadful, hated husband/wife who you can't wait to see annihilated immediately.
"Strangers were not welcome in Invercurie, never had been, and never would be."
Dave is persistent however, ignoring the warnings and ire of the villagers. He eventually finishes his chalets and runs ads in the papers. Before long, he has his first customers - Eddie and Sarah.
Mere days go by before the vacationing couple realizes something is wrong with this isolated village. The locals are hostile to them, they hear scratching and grunting at their door at night - Dave telling them it's feral dogs - and they are forbidden from walking up to the mountains. However, when Eddie, absolutely entranced with the caves up in the mountains, ignores the warnings, he disappears, never returning the to chalet that night.
When the next vacationing family arrives, they share similar frightening experiences, plus their dog is torn apart when it's left tied outside at night. Then, the unthinkable happens, and their young son goes missing, last seen headed in the direction of the mountains.
When the last set of vacationers arrive, the others are frantic - their loved ones are missing and they're sure something very disturbing is living in those caves up in the mountains. The remaining holiday-goers band together, vowing to all stick together and go up to the caves to help retrieve their missing friends and family. As it turns out, they're very right - something does live in those caves. Cannibalistic, inbred mutants - and they're very hungry.
-----------------
This is my 3rd Guy N. Smith book - I was worried going into it I'd dislike it, because I didn't care for the last book I read by him very much. However, I was pleasantly surprised that the story inside lived up to the cover. A really good read, with the usual dreadful, hated husband/wife who you can't wait to see annihilated immediately.
September 29, 2021
Best thing about it was the cover. Not this cover, the one with the big foreheaded pale pink thing holding a slice of nondescript meat in its webbed claw. All the stuff beyond the cover was about as unpredictable as a washing machine's wash cycle.
March 21, 2021
A quick, fun read. Not one of his best, but still thoroughly enjoyed it. 🖤
December 17, 2014
The best thing about this book is the cover on my copy, which is not pictured on Goodreads, sadly. It is, interestingly, a very faithful rendering of the cannibal creatures as depicted in the book, rather than a generic drawing of your everyday cannibal (or a random dog mouth as on the pictured cover??). It is the sort of freaky cover that draws strange looks when reading in public. The old lady next to me on the plane looked at this cover, looked at my iPod (coincidentally playing a song called 'Serial Killer' at the time) and BAM I had my own armrest. So reading this book makes you look like you packed a chainsaw in your carry-on but there are benefits.
Other than the great cover this is your standard crazy mutant underground cannibal gollums beset attractive holiday-goers thing. You know the deal. A lot of people die and the kids aren't even safe. The ones who survive though are totally not the ones that would have made it in a film. There is multiple dog death though which always makes me sad :C so mean.
Other than the great cover this is your standard crazy mutant underground cannibal gollums beset attractive holiday-goers thing. You know the deal. A lot of people die and the kids aren't even safe. The ones who survive though are totally not the ones that would have made it in a film. There is multiple dog death though which always makes me sad :C so mean.
May 14, 2025
While I haven't read 'Cannibals' in decades, I remember it being a strong entry in his bibliography. Reading it afresh, I'd underline that because it's a particularly strong survival horror novel, with a distinct lack of sex but some agreeably gruesome scenes when it all gets moving. Chapter thirteen is particularly brutal, up there with the goriest in Smith's bibliography, but what shocked me most is how patiently it all builds. As accurate as Les Edwards's iconic art on the reissue happens to be, I firmly prefer the original more minimalist artwork because it literally keeps us more in the dark.
And that's an appropriate phrase to use here because whatever is hiding in the caves at Blair Long and wandering down to the rural Scottish village of Invercurie only comes out at night. Smith aims to keep us in the dark about them too. Sure, they're the cannibals of the title, but he doesn't give us a visual until page 94, with almost half the book done. When unwary holidaymakers arrive for a quiet time in Douglas Geddis's new chalets, they're merely given hints to stay inside at night. The locals are all sharing a deep and dark secret but they don't want to let anyone else in on it.
If it wasn't for Geddis, maybe that secret would be kept still and it's because of that that he has to be my favourite character, even though he isn't a likely candidate. He's a fisherman, born and bred in Invercurie, which is on Scotland's west coast, a stone's throw from Oban at the other end of the Caledonian Canal from Inverness, so he's well aware of the secret of Blair Long. However, he's also a widower and he's tired. He's in his fifties, he's been on his own since his wife died a decade back and nothing ever changes in Invercurie.
So, when he quietly builds six chalets on the Beck, it's probably fair to say that he's aware that the story he's putting into motion isn't going to end well: not for him, not for the villagers and not for any holidaymakers who answer his ads. Maybe to him, it's the only way he can see to do what must be done. And who's to say that he's wrong? Maybe you can judge him once you finish up this couple of hundred pages and see if there's anyone that you find sympathetic.
Smith is rightly known for setting most of his novels in the countryside, but this doesn't follow his usual approach. Typically, the country folk in a Smith novel are the good guys, because they know how things are supposed to be and generations of them have maintained a balance. The bad guys are the outsiders who move in from the city, not understanding that balance and often prompting disaster through either arrogance or ineptitude. That's all reversed here, with the locals the bad guys and their traditional ways the problem. The outsiders aren't moving here for good, just for a holiday, and they're not good guys so much as innocents. However, the roles are clearly reversed.
Also, Smith usually plays up the community aspects of country life, but everything here is about an abiding sense of isolation. We can feel abundant space between everything. It's there physically, of course, as Invercurie is a highland village twenty miles from its nearest neighbour, peering up at a bleak mountain in between, and Geddis's chalets are on the outskirts. It's in the sparse local population; locals bitch and moan at Geddis one at a time, nobody ever finds anyone else in Mary Brown's shop except her and even the local priest travels in from elsewhere. It's exactly the place where someone might go to hide or escape. Smith is happy to keep such someones to a minimum too, because a place this quiet should remain that way, at least until the screaming starts.
First up are Eddie Drake and Sarah Bryant. He's a thirty-five-year-old lecturer; she's nineteen and one of his students. They're escaping the obvious scandal for a month. Sarah's a worrier and Eddie is a stubborn ass, appropriately given their ages and natures, so they remind of the Foggs in 'The Lurkers'. Then it's the Halseys, Frank and Cynthia, with their kids Vicky and Jamie. Frank's a bank manager—well, kinda sorta—and Cynthia's a snob, so they remind of the Brownlows in 'Accursed'. We're halfway before young couple Mike Sallis and Jayne Tomlins show up, eighteen-year-olds on their first trip away from family. By that point, some of these folk are already dead or missing and Phil Drake, the real lead character, is already there in search of his idiot brother.
I'd suggest that I've set enough of the stage here, but Smith does keep us on the hop. He follows a very old school monster movie approach to the cannibals of the title, offering us mere hints, never leaving us in their company for long and having other characters explain their background. Surely Smith based them on the legend of Sawney Bean, even if he shifts the action further north, but he adds some truly gruesome layers of background on top of that fundamentally simple story. And he shifts approach from mysterious folk horror, once the mystery is revealed, to survival horror, which builds magnificently.
At the end of the day, the bedrock here is pretty flimsy but Smith builds so well on it and in such a deceptively effortless way that it ends up being far more substantial than we'd ever have believed going in. It wouldn't be difficult to conjure up a comparison to Jack Ketchum's 'Off Season', but it's Smith who provides all the subtleties there, while still getting just as brutal when he wants to. Ah yes, chapter thirteen, but other moments too, sometimes brutal through revelation as much as in spectacle.
The final surprise is that Smith never wrote a sequel and, to the best of my knowledge, never even considered it. While this works perfectly well as a standalone novel, he clearly left the door open for a sequel and simply never walked through it. I wonder why, especially as he was about to write sequels to a few earlier novels. He started 1987 with two originals, 'Alligators' and Bloodshow, but then contributed sequels to 'Thirst' and 'Deathbell', each previously a standalone, then added the legendary sixth 'Crabs' book, 'Crabs: The Human Sacrifice'. 'Cannibals', however, still stands alone.
Originally posted at the Nameless Zine in November 2024:
https://www.thenamelesszine.org/Voice...
Index of all my Nameless Zine reviews:
https://books.apocalypselaterempire.com/
And that's an appropriate phrase to use here because whatever is hiding in the caves at Blair Long and wandering down to the rural Scottish village of Invercurie only comes out at night. Smith aims to keep us in the dark about them too. Sure, they're the cannibals of the title, but he doesn't give us a visual until page 94, with almost half the book done. When unwary holidaymakers arrive for a quiet time in Douglas Geddis's new chalets, they're merely given hints to stay inside at night. The locals are all sharing a deep and dark secret but they don't want to let anyone else in on it.
If it wasn't for Geddis, maybe that secret would be kept still and it's because of that that he has to be my favourite character, even though he isn't a likely candidate. He's a fisherman, born and bred in Invercurie, which is on Scotland's west coast, a stone's throw from Oban at the other end of the Caledonian Canal from Inverness, so he's well aware of the secret of Blair Long. However, he's also a widower and he's tired. He's in his fifties, he's been on his own since his wife died a decade back and nothing ever changes in Invercurie.
So, when he quietly builds six chalets on the Beck, it's probably fair to say that he's aware that the story he's putting into motion isn't going to end well: not for him, not for the villagers and not for any holidaymakers who answer his ads. Maybe to him, it's the only way he can see to do what must be done. And who's to say that he's wrong? Maybe you can judge him once you finish up this couple of hundred pages and see if there's anyone that you find sympathetic.
Smith is rightly known for setting most of his novels in the countryside, but this doesn't follow his usual approach. Typically, the country folk in a Smith novel are the good guys, because they know how things are supposed to be and generations of them have maintained a balance. The bad guys are the outsiders who move in from the city, not understanding that balance and often prompting disaster through either arrogance or ineptitude. That's all reversed here, with the locals the bad guys and their traditional ways the problem. The outsiders aren't moving here for good, just for a holiday, and they're not good guys so much as innocents. However, the roles are clearly reversed.
Also, Smith usually plays up the community aspects of country life, but everything here is about an abiding sense of isolation. We can feel abundant space between everything. It's there physically, of course, as Invercurie is a highland village twenty miles from its nearest neighbour, peering up at a bleak mountain in between, and Geddis's chalets are on the outskirts. It's in the sparse local population; locals bitch and moan at Geddis one at a time, nobody ever finds anyone else in Mary Brown's shop except her and even the local priest travels in from elsewhere. It's exactly the place where someone might go to hide or escape. Smith is happy to keep such someones to a minimum too, because a place this quiet should remain that way, at least until the screaming starts.
First up are Eddie Drake and Sarah Bryant. He's a thirty-five-year-old lecturer; she's nineteen and one of his students. They're escaping the obvious scandal for a month. Sarah's a worrier and Eddie is a stubborn ass, appropriately given their ages and natures, so they remind of the Foggs in 'The Lurkers'. Then it's the Halseys, Frank and Cynthia, with their kids Vicky and Jamie. Frank's a bank manager—well, kinda sorta—and Cynthia's a snob, so they remind of the Brownlows in 'Accursed'. We're halfway before young couple Mike Sallis and Jayne Tomlins show up, eighteen-year-olds on their first trip away from family. By that point, some of these folk are already dead or missing and Phil Drake, the real lead character, is already there in search of his idiot brother.
I'd suggest that I've set enough of the stage here, but Smith does keep us on the hop. He follows a very old school monster movie approach to the cannibals of the title, offering us mere hints, never leaving us in their company for long and having other characters explain their background. Surely Smith based them on the legend of Sawney Bean, even if he shifts the action further north, but he adds some truly gruesome layers of background on top of that fundamentally simple story. And he shifts approach from mysterious folk horror, once the mystery is revealed, to survival horror, which builds magnificently.
At the end of the day, the bedrock here is pretty flimsy but Smith builds so well on it and in such a deceptively effortless way that it ends up being far more substantial than we'd ever have believed going in. It wouldn't be difficult to conjure up a comparison to Jack Ketchum's 'Off Season', but it's Smith who provides all the subtleties there, while still getting just as brutal when he wants to. Ah yes, chapter thirteen, but other moments too, sometimes brutal through revelation as much as in spectacle.
The final surprise is that Smith never wrote a sequel and, to the best of my knowledge, never even considered it. While this works perfectly well as a standalone novel, he clearly left the door open for a sequel and simply never walked through it. I wonder why, especially as he was about to write sequels to a few earlier novels. He started 1987 with two originals, 'Alligators' and Bloodshow, but then contributed sequels to 'Thirst' and 'Deathbell', each previously a standalone, then added the legendary sixth 'Crabs' book, 'Crabs: The Human Sacrifice'. 'Cannibals', however, still stands alone.
Originally posted at the Nameless Zine in November 2024:
https://www.thenamelesszine.org/Voice...
Index of all my Nameless Zine reviews:
https://books.apocalypselaterempire.com/
February 23, 2025
Oohhhh it's been a while Mr Smith 🖤
.
The town of Invercurie decides in needs a new burst of life and Doug Geddis is the guy to make that happen. He has taken it upon himself to build some holiday chalets much to the rest of the villagers disgust.
.
Holiday makers start turning up to the little quiet village of Invercurie and are instantly taken in by the seaside and the glorious mountains. Let's take a hike! Oh shit! Doug forgot to mention DON'T GO INTO THE MOUNTAINS and DON'T GO OUT AFTER DARK!
.
.
We all know that Mr Smiths books have the same baseline story but this one literally made me gag. I thoroughly enjoyed this grotesque story. All these people wanted was to go on their little hollibobs and see the sites, and it's a holiday from hell. Literally these monsters must come from hell. The story is well thought of and the horror scenes are just 🤮🤮🤮. It's hard to write a decent horror and Mr Smith does it so well
.
The only little tiny weeny aspect I didn't like was introducing new characters towards the end of the book. I understand why, but we can do without them, let's focus on the ones we have shall we?
What a blast!
.
The town of Invercurie decides in needs a new burst of life and Doug Geddis is the guy to make that happen. He has taken it upon himself to build some holiday chalets much to the rest of the villagers disgust.
.
Holiday makers start turning up to the little quiet village of Invercurie and are instantly taken in by the seaside and the glorious mountains. Let's take a hike! Oh shit! Doug forgot to mention DON'T GO INTO THE MOUNTAINS and DON'T GO OUT AFTER DARK!
.
.
We all know that Mr Smiths books have the same baseline story but this one literally made me gag. I thoroughly enjoyed this grotesque story. All these people wanted was to go on their little hollibobs and see the sites, and it's a holiday from hell. Literally these monsters must come from hell. The story is well thought of and the horror scenes are just 🤮🤮🤮. It's hard to write a decent horror and Mr Smith does it so well
.
The only little tiny weeny aspect I didn't like was introducing new characters towards the end of the book. I understand why, but we can do without them, let's focus on the ones we have shall we?
What a blast!
April 14, 2025
4.5 stars out of 5.
This book has a lit more to it that you standard cannibals, another great read by Guy N Smith.
gory, creepy, and disturbing.
This book has a lit more to it that you standard cannibals, another great read by Guy N Smith.
gory, creepy, and disturbing.
July 6, 2023
Do cannibals ever get interesting? Maybe I've read too many back woods cannibal stuff lately.
May 26, 2020
A bunch of inbred half humans with hunched bodies, no necks, short arms with webbed hands, grotesque features with a third eye are protected by a small village in Scotland. But once some tourists find out about the villages evil secret the inbred freaky humans go on a rampage devouring human flesh. Really creepy story.
February 18, 2018
This rates as one of my favourite books of the past, i couldn't put it down and it helped inspire me to want to write horror novels. Gripping, terrifying, descriptive and stays with you. A great book I'm glad i found.
November 8, 2024
Whatever the opposite of elevated horror is, Guy N. Smith must be the patron saint of it. His paperbacks aren't about existential dread. They're about giant crabs or slime beasts that are out to get you when you're not making it with a well-endowed blonde.
Sadly, even for schlock (and GNS writes all the scary bits in italics, like he's hearing a musical stinger even as he writes), Cannibals has far more in common with Ed Wood than Joe D'Amato. It's clumsily written, with a leaden beginning, an erratic pace, and far too many episodes that end with the characters deciding that there's nothing more to be done at this hour, so they'd best get some sleep and recoup their energy. New characters are introduced seemingly at random and backstory is awkwardly inserted about the climax, as though GNS thought of some scary scenes to throw in, but couldn't be bothered to go back and organically integrate them into the story. Editing's for college boys. You'll take your typos and like 'em!
You can probably discern the plot from the title, all one word of it, but it goes like this. Doubtlessly inspired by the legend of Sawney Bean, there's a town in Scotland with a clan of inbred cannibals in the mountains. This is, of course, the town's dark secret, not listed on the tourist pamphlets. You'd have to be Anthony Bourdain to find out about these eats.
It's not too convincingly portrayed how they got there (it has to do with a rabbit plague) and the whole thing kinda smacks of anti-Scottish sentiment. I'm sure that Scottish obesity rates aren't what they could be, but I don't think many of them hide out in the mountains, sleep with their relatives, and develop a taste for human flesh.
One villager decides to build a rustic resort for tourists. The other villagers disapprove, knowing that nothing good comes of outsiders and towns with dark secrets, but they don't go so far as to actually warn anyone who doesn't already know of the hordes of rape-mutants in the hills, except in the vaguest Scooby Doo terms. Bruh, you're talking to yuppies. You're gonna need to be more specific.
After an unaccountably slow opening, where multiple characters cack it off-screen (of all places!), Cannibals finally kicks off properly with a gang rape. Tasteless, sure, and also false advertising. It is called Cannibals, after all, not Diddy Party. Where's the graphic depiction of someone having their liver ripped out and ground up between pointy teeth?
We get some of that in the back half, as the remaining cast make a run for it, but here's where GNS bizarrely decides to make a meal of the "town with a dark secret" stuff that we really should've moved past by this point in the narrative. People are dead--now's not the time to bring up the town preacher struggling with morality.
And couldn't we have some of these vignettes about people being destroyed by flesh-eaters happen earlier in the narrative and not throwing off the flow of the third act? I know that's what we're all here for, but it just seems choppy to introduce this stuff right before it dovetails with the main narrative. Maybe GNS didn't have much respect for his audience's attention span.
It ends frustratingly between an anticlimax and "the monsters are still out there." Maybe GNS thought to keep a little franchise in his backpocket in case cannibals proved as hot a trend as crabs. Didn't shake out that way. Perhapsit's the British reserve, but Cannibals positions itself as too trashy to really scare, but also not being exuberant enough with the gratuitousness to properly hit you in the gut. There's just something deadening about how the characters get picked off as elliptically as love scenes in a lesbian pulp, how they nonchalantly figure out the monsters exist from getting a nonviolent glimpse of them, of how they're so easily foiled from fleeing or getting help. There's some good-faith effort put into spilling entrails near the end, but it was too little, too late for me.
At least the cover is appropriately grody. If you're putting out a horror paperback, you really should have a cover that could convince a suburban mother your prose does as much for child development as the Uvalde PD.
Sadly, even for schlock (and GNS writes all the scary bits in italics, like he's hearing a musical stinger even as he writes), Cannibals has far more in common with Ed Wood than Joe D'Amato. It's clumsily written, with a leaden beginning, an erratic pace, and far too many episodes that end with the characters deciding that there's nothing more to be done at this hour, so they'd best get some sleep and recoup their energy. New characters are introduced seemingly at random and backstory is awkwardly inserted about the climax, as though GNS thought of some scary scenes to throw in, but couldn't be bothered to go back and organically integrate them into the story. Editing's for college boys. You'll take your typos and like 'em!
You can probably discern the plot from the title, all one word of it, but it goes like this. Doubtlessly inspired by the legend of Sawney Bean, there's a town in Scotland with a clan of inbred cannibals in the mountains. This is, of course, the town's dark secret, not listed on the tourist pamphlets. You'd have to be Anthony Bourdain to find out about these eats.
It's not too convincingly portrayed how they got there (it has to do with a rabbit plague) and the whole thing kinda smacks of anti-Scottish sentiment. I'm sure that Scottish obesity rates aren't what they could be, but I don't think many of them hide out in the mountains, sleep with their relatives, and develop a taste for human flesh.
One villager decides to build a rustic resort for tourists. The other villagers disapprove, knowing that nothing good comes of outsiders and towns with dark secrets, but they don't go so far as to actually warn anyone who doesn't already know of the hordes of rape-mutants in the hills, except in the vaguest Scooby Doo terms. Bruh, you're talking to yuppies. You're gonna need to be more specific.
After an unaccountably slow opening, where multiple characters cack it off-screen (of all places!), Cannibals finally kicks off properly with a gang rape. Tasteless, sure, and also false advertising. It is called Cannibals, after all, not Diddy Party. Where's the graphic depiction of someone having their liver ripped out and ground up between pointy teeth?
We get some of that in the back half, as the remaining cast make a run for it, but here's where GNS bizarrely decides to make a meal of the "town with a dark secret" stuff that we really should've moved past by this point in the narrative. People are dead--now's not the time to bring up the town preacher struggling with morality.
And couldn't we have some of these vignettes about people being destroyed by flesh-eaters happen earlier in the narrative and not throwing off the flow of the third act? I know that's what we're all here for, but it just seems choppy to introduce this stuff right before it dovetails with the main narrative. Maybe GNS didn't have much respect for his audience's attention span.
It ends frustratingly between an anticlimax and "the monsters are still out there." Maybe GNS thought to keep a little franchise in his backpocket in case cannibals proved as hot a trend as crabs. Didn't shake out that way. Perhapsit's the British reserve, but Cannibals positions itself as too trashy to really scare, but also not being exuberant enough with the gratuitousness to properly hit you in the gut. There's just something deadening about how the characters get picked off as elliptically as love scenes in a lesbian pulp, how they nonchalantly figure out the monsters exist from getting a nonviolent glimpse of them, of how they're so easily foiled from fleeing or getting help. There's some good-faith effort put into spilling entrails near the end, but it was too little, too late for me.
At least the cover is appropriately grody. If you're putting out a horror paperback, you really should have a cover that could convince a suburban mother your prose does as much for child development as the Uvalde PD.
December 23, 2024
This book is 200 pages and once it got to page 100 it turns into a violent, gory, horrific, fight for human survival against the inbred, deformed, savage, hill dwelling, cannibals. It's weird that there is no main character! I liked it. Guy N. Smith wrote many a horror novel about creatures and killers. His books are really hard to come by in physical form but I'm trying to collect 'em all.
September 12, 2017
Gross. Entertaining. Addictive.
June 26, 2021
3.6*
Tựa tiếng Việt: Giáo Chủ
NXB Hội Nhà Văn
In 1000 cuốn 13*19
In tháng 9/2004
Tựa tiếng Việt: Giáo Chủ
NXB Hội Nhà Văn
In 1000 cuốn 13*19
In tháng 9/2004
July 15, 2022
1½ rounded down.
February 5, 2020
Well, after looking for this book for 20 years I have finely finished it! Scary at points and creepy! Should really come with a trigger warning (very unexpected trigger moments) I was very disappointed with the ending although the storyline itself was ok. A quick read (if your not working 12 hour shifts) I would give it 3 stars ⭐⭐⭐
February 17, 2020
Genren selkeimpiä väristyksiä aiheuttaa Guy N. Smith nimisen taiturin teos Kannibaalit, joka julkaistiin pokkarina 1991 suomennettuna, ja Kustannus Oy Jalava nimisen kunnioitettavan instanssin toimesta, ja jota siten myytiin sopivasti myös Tiimarissa edullisesti – samalla kuin ironisesti osti mökille kesäkalustoa, tabletteja ja mehukannua.
Kirjan takakannessa kerrotaan: " Syrjäisellä vuorella Skotlannissa asustaa joukko perimältään rappeutuneita villi-ihmisiä." Olisiko parempi jos kaikki muuttuisivat takaisin villi-ihmisiksi? Unohtaisivat miesten keksimät uskonnot, sodat, veroilmoitukset ja kartat rajoineen?
Avasin vaihteeksi Guy N. Smithin romaanin Kannibaalit vuodelta 1991 ( Cannibals, 1986 ), jossa
Skotlannin syrjäseudulle tulee skandaalia pakoon epäsuhtainen pariskunta – onhan sinne avattu uuden uutukainen lomakylä! Paikalliset ovat tietenkin vihaisia, ja sisäänpäin kääntyneitä, hyvinkin taantuneita…. eivätkä oikein suostu palvelemaan moista syntistä susiparia.
Pidän Guy N. Smithin niuvasta tyylistä – kun Jeff Long ujutti romaaninsa Helvetin piirit ( 2001 ) kaiken tietonsa mm. kiipeilystä, ja vielä vanhempiensa erityisalojen tiedot mm. geologiasta, tuntui lukijasta samalta kuin maan keskipisteeseen matkaavalta, tuskaiselta taistelulta punnertaa, ei vaan itse asiassa porautua, sivujen kuin graniitin lävitse, ja vasta loppupuolella päästä itse asiaan…. Mutta jokainen taaplaa [p]irrallaan. Erinomainen kirja sekin.
Kuten Hitchcockin Psyko myös Kannibaalit esittelevät päähenkilönsä aviorikoksen tekijöinä.
Kannibaalit -romaanissa ollaan todellakin kyläpahasessa, syrjässä, koska sinne vie vain yksi tie – kun vuorovesi ei sitä peitä… Skismaa siis dramatiikkaa tuo ja luo kun yksi kyläläisistä rakensi lomakylän turisteja varten! Muut kyläläiset eivät tätä sulata, he eivät halua, että syntinne, irstas ulkomaailma saapuisi nuhteetonta idylliänsä rikkomaan. Sellainen häpeäpilkku – tuo nykyaikainen paholainen. Turismi. Todella irvokasta!
Juuri Guy N. Smithin teoksessa Kannibaalit on kiinnostavaa, kuinka pariskunnasta nainen on se, joka pelkää yöllä kuulemiaan ääniä. Eddie ei äänistä ja raapimisista välitä, vaan pitää niitä pelkästään naisen näkeminä painajaisina. Mies ei usko. Tietenkin on kyseessä valtataistelu – onhan mies vanhempi, professori ja nainen hänen vietelty, nuori oppilaansa. Mies pakoilee kokemattoman tytön lohduttaviin helmoihin avioliittoansa, jossa puoliso nalkuttaa, kun taas nuorella naisella ei muita sulhoja ole ollut. Mies ehdottomasti haluaa arkeologina mennä tutkimaan luolia – hän katuisi lopun elämäänsä jos ei niitä tutkisi… Vaikka vihamieliset kyläläiset kaikki jostain syystä pelkäävät vuoria, eivätkä sano miksi, vaan puhuvat villikoirista ja maanvyörymistä. Ettei sinne saa missään nimessä mennä hortoilemaan pimeän tultua! Kylän synkkää salaisuutta ei haluta paljastaa. Kaikkihan me olemme miettineet tullessamme syrjäseudulle näitä.
Mutta Eddie haluaa tehdä vain pikasilmäyksen. Mehän kaikki työnarkomaanit tämän tiedostamme – valehtelemme läheisille, että tekemämme työ on valmis ihan kohta. Minä vain vähän jatkan… Splatter oli tuona aikana sopivan tärähtänyttä ja kouriintuntuvaa suomennuta lukemista – jota sai aina muutaman vuoden viiveellä.
Kirjan takakannessa kerrotaan: " Syrjäisellä vuorella Skotlannissa asustaa joukko perimältään rappeutuneita villi-ihmisiä." Olisiko parempi jos kaikki muuttuisivat takaisin villi-ihmisiksi? Unohtaisivat miesten keksimät uskonnot, sodat, veroilmoitukset ja kartat rajoineen?
Avasin vaihteeksi Guy N. Smithin romaanin Kannibaalit vuodelta 1991 ( Cannibals, 1986 ), jossa
Skotlannin syrjäseudulle tulee skandaalia pakoon epäsuhtainen pariskunta – onhan sinne avattu uuden uutukainen lomakylä! Paikalliset ovat tietenkin vihaisia, ja sisäänpäin kääntyneitä, hyvinkin taantuneita…. eivätkä oikein suostu palvelemaan moista syntistä susiparia.
Pidän Guy N. Smithin niuvasta tyylistä – kun Jeff Long ujutti romaaninsa Helvetin piirit ( 2001 ) kaiken tietonsa mm. kiipeilystä, ja vielä vanhempiensa erityisalojen tiedot mm. geologiasta, tuntui lukijasta samalta kuin maan keskipisteeseen matkaavalta, tuskaiselta taistelulta punnertaa, ei vaan itse asiassa porautua, sivujen kuin graniitin lävitse, ja vasta loppupuolella päästä itse asiaan…. Mutta jokainen taaplaa [p]irrallaan. Erinomainen kirja sekin.
Kuten Hitchcockin Psyko myös Kannibaalit esittelevät päähenkilönsä aviorikoksen tekijöinä.
Kannibaalit -romaanissa ollaan todellakin kyläpahasessa, syrjässä, koska sinne vie vain yksi tie – kun vuorovesi ei sitä peitä… Skismaa siis dramatiikkaa tuo ja luo kun yksi kyläläisistä rakensi lomakylän turisteja varten! Muut kyläläiset eivät tätä sulata, he eivät halua, että syntinne, irstas ulkomaailma saapuisi nuhteetonta idylliänsä rikkomaan. Sellainen häpeäpilkku – tuo nykyaikainen paholainen. Turismi. Todella irvokasta!
Juuri Guy N. Smithin teoksessa Kannibaalit on kiinnostavaa, kuinka pariskunnasta nainen on se, joka pelkää yöllä kuulemiaan ääniä. Eddie ei äänistä ja raapimisista välitä, vaan pitää niitä pelkästään naisen näkeminä painajaisina. Mies ei usko. Tietenkin on kyseessä valtataistelu – onhan mies vanhempi, professori ja nainen hänen vietelty, nuori oppilaansa. Mies pakoilee kokemattoman tytön lohduttaviin helmoihin avioliittoansa, jossa puoliso nalkuttaa, kun taas nuorella naisella ei muita sulhoja ole ollut. Mies ehdottomasti haluaa arkeologina mennä tutkimaan luolia – hän katuisi lopun elämäänsä jos ei niitä tutkisi… Vaikka vihamieliset kyläläiset kaikki jostain syystä pelkäävät vuoria, eivätkä sano miksi, vaan puhuvat villikoirista ja maanvyörymistä. Ettei sinne saa missään nimessä mennä hortoilemaan pimeän tultua! Kylän synkkää salaisuutta ei haluta paljastaa. Kaikkihan me olemme miettineet tullessamme syrjäseudulle näitä.
Mutta Eddie haluaa tehdä vain pikasilmäyksen. Mehän kaikki työnarkomaanit tämän tiedostamme – valehtelemme läheisille, että tekemämme työ on valmis ihan kohta. Minä vain vähän jatkan… Splatter oli tuona aikana sopivan tärähtänyttä ja kouriintuntuvaa suomennuta lukemista – jota sai aina muutaman vuoden viiveellä.
February 26, 2011
I really enjoyed this little book. The events can almost be seen as realistic for the era the book was written, which adds to my popularity. The story was fast paced and was resolved well. This was a good recommendation. I have another book by this author I will certainly be reading.
February 21, 2012
A classic book and a constant page turner! this is the 5th time I've read it and won't be the last!
January 2, 2016
I read this on New Years Day. What a refreshing start to 2016. I enjoy reading Mr Smith's work.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews