Cannibals By Guy N. Smith

Cannibals
By Guy N. Smith
1996 Sheridan
Paperback, 208 pages

Artwork by Les Edwards

    This is top-shelf GNS all the way. Filled with detestable people that have horrible, gory things happen to them. You really can’t ask for more.

    nvercurie is a tiny village buried in the Scottish Highlands. The people there like… no, demand their privacy and plan on keeping outsiders out. Doug Geddis decides to build a few chalets on his property, much to the consternation of his fellow villagers. You see, Invercurie has a secret living up in the mountains, and they’d like to keep it hidden. But, of course, tourists do start to show up to Geddis’s chalets and despite warnings from the short-tempered locals, the outsiders hike up into the mountains. And that’s where the cannibals live.

    A man and his 19-year-old arm candy, a dysfunctional family of four (and their doomed dog), and a young couple making their first getaway: these are the folks who rented the chintzy chalets and might live to regret it. The mutated cannibal folks visit in the night and yum, that human meat is the tastiest of all. Smith doesn’t shy away from anything in the telling of this tale. The gore is nauseating (i.e. wonderful), and you can almost really smell the caves that the cannibals dwell in.

GNS does his usual expert job on setting the stage. The village is a very real place and the mountains around it are very easy to put yourself right into. The sketchy chalets couldn’t keep out a raccoon, much less a pack of hungry cannibals. Despite the spacious outdoor setting, a real sense of claustrophobia is achieved. Those cannibals are stealthy. I wonder how many readers would agree with me that GNS purposely set up this narrative with a Psycho-like structure.

Cannibals was first published in 1986 by Arrow Books with a somewhat dull cover of what looks like a dog’s snout. When they reissued it in 1988, they wisely changed it over to a great Les Edwards painting, one that respectfully depicts the cannibals as described in Smith’s prose. That cover was retained for Sheridan’s third printing, I’m happy to say. Smith plus Edwards equals perfection. This one comes highly recommended.

The less effective cover for Arrow's first edition.