What actually happens
A rescue mission with a cocaine problem
In 1979, an American film crew goes into the Amazon rainforest to shoot a documentary about cannibal tribes called The Green Inferno. The crew is director Alan Yates, script supervisor Faye Daniels, cameramen Jack Anders and Mark Tomaso, and a native guide named Felipe, and they disappear. Harold Monroe, an anthropologist from NYU, agrees to lead a rescue mission. Before he arrives, soldiers stationed in the area raid a Yacumo community and grab a young man to use as a hostage. Monroe flies in on a floatplane, and his guides Chaco and Miguel join him. Out on the trail they come across Felipe's skeleton, and Chaco keeps the hostage manageable by forcing cocaine into him. They watch a native man kill a woman as punishment for adultery, and Chaco forbids Monroe to step in. The team promises to free the hostage in exchange for being led to the Yacumo village, where the crew's visit caused great unrest.
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A tape recorder worth more than the film
The next day Monroe and his guides go deeper into the rainforest to look for two tribes at war, the Yanomami and the Shamatari. A band of Shamatari warriors leads them to a riverbank, where Monroe and his guides stop a smaller group of Yanomami from being killed. The Yanomami thank them with an invitation to their village, although they still distrust the outsiders. Monroe bathes naked in a river to win their trust, and some of the Yanomami women join him. One of them leads him to a shrine, where he finds the skeletons of the film crew and their reels of film. Later he plays music from a tape recorder in the village, and the tribe, curious about it, agrees to trade the reels for the machine.
The network wants a documentary
Monroe returns to New York, where executives at the Pan American Broadcasting System ask him to host a documentary built from the recovered reels. He insists on seeing the raw footage first. The executives show him a clip of Alan's earlier film, The Last Road to Hell, and one of them tells Monroe that Alan faked dramatic scenes to liven up his documentaries. Monroe begins to watch the reels. Felipe is bitten by a venomous snake, the crew amputates his leg with a machete, and he dies and is left behind. When they find the Yacumo, Jack shoots one of them in the leg so they can follow him back to the village. In the village, the crew terrorizes the tribe and kills a child's pet pig. They then herd the people into a hut and set it on fire to stage a massacre for the camera. Monroe says he is uneasy about the staged footage, and the crew ignores him.
The last two reels
Monroe is sickened that the network still plans to air the documentary, and he shows the executives the unedited footage that only he has watched. The final two reels open with the crew raping a young Yanomami woman while Faye protests and a man from the tribe watches silently from a distance. Later they come across the same girl by a river, impaled on a wooden pole, and they say the tribe punished her for losing her virginity. This is the worst part of the movie, and it comes at the end. The tribe attacks them in revenge. A spear hits Jack, Alan shoots him to stop him escaping, and the tribe strips and mutilates his body. Alan admits they are lost and surrounded, and he tries to frighten the tribe off with a flare gun. The Yanomami capture Faye, and Mark keeps filming as she is raped, beaten and beheaded. The tribe then finds and kills the last two members of the crew.
The ending, explained
After the tribe kills the last two crew members, the camera falls to the ground. The executives are disturbed and order all of the footage burned. Monroe leaves the station, thinking about who the real cannibals are. By the end, Alan, Faye, Jack, Mark and Felipe are all dead, and the executives have ordered the footage that shows how it happened burned.
The post-credits ruling
There is no post-credits scene. You can leave when the credits start.
✓ Spoiled safelyDog status: fine, no dog dies, though real animals do.
Questions people ask at 1am
Is Cannibal Holocaust scary?
Yes, Cannibal Holocaust is a 9 out of 10 with persistent dread. It is a brutal movie with graphic violence, sexual violence and real animal killings, and it has no jump scares.
How does Cannibal Holocaust end?
Every member of the documentary crew dies in the footage, and the executives order it burned. Monroe leaves the station wondering who the real cannibals are.
Does the dog die in Cannibal Holocaust?
No dog dies in Cannibal Holocaust, but other animals do. Six real animals are killed on screen, and in the story the crew kills a child's pet pig. A jaguar appears and is scared off without being harmed.
Is there a post-credits scene in Cannibal Holocaust?
No. Cannibal Holocaust has no post-credits scene, so you can leave when the credits start.
Who is Alan Yates in Cannibal Holocaust?
Alan Yates is the director of the missing documentary crew in Cannibal Holocaust. He stages scenes to make his films more exciting, and his crew's abuse of the tribe leads to the tribe's revenge.
