While the film’s graphic depictions of sexual assault, mutilation, and cannibalism are harrowing, the source of its most enduring and justifiable controversy is its treatment of animals. To achieve its brutal, documentary-style realism, Deodato incorporated . On screen, viewers are forced to witness a muskrat being decapitated, a turtle being slowly dismembered and shelled, a monkey being killed, and a coatimundi (a member of the raccoon family) being murdered with a machete. The “no animals were harmed” disclaimer that appears in most films is notably and horrifically absent from this one.
The film's realism was so convincing that it led to unprecedented legal consequences: cannibal holocaust 1980 filmyzilla