However, the index of the film is permanently stained by its treatment of animals. While the human deaths were simulated, the animal killings—including a turtle, a pig, and a monkey—were real and unsimulated. This creates a moral paradox that continues to haunt the film’s legacy. These scenes index a period of "transgressive cinema" where the line between art and cruelty was intentionally blurred to shock Western audiences. It forces the viewer to confront the hypocrisy of being horrified by fictional human death while consuming actual animal slaughter as entertainment.
: Monroe recovers the crew’s lost film cans and returns to New York to review them Ancillary Review of Books index of cannibal holocaust
The film is divided into two distinct parts. The first half follows an anthropologist, Professor Harold Monroe, as he leads a rescue mission into the Amazon rainforest to find a missing documentary film crew. The second half involves Monroe returning to New York City with the crew's recovered footage, which reveals the horrific fate of the filmmakers. However, the index of the film is permanently