The film involves photojournalist Emanuelle (Laura Gemser), who encounters a cannibalistic woman bearing a tattoo of an Amazonian tribe in a mental hospital.

Along with Professor Mark Lester (Gabriele Tinti), the two travel to the Amazon with a team to discover the source of the long-thought-extinct tribe that still practices cannibalism today.

[2] In a New York City psychiatric ward, photojournalist Emanuelle (Laura Gemser) learns about a girl there who was found in the Amazon rainforest.

She contacts Professor Mark Lester (Gabriele Tinti), the curator at the American Museum of Natural History, and persuades him to come with her to the Amazon.

Attacked by a snake, Emanuelle is rescued by hunter Donald McKenzie (Donald O'Brien), who joins the group together with his wife Maggie (Nieves Navarro) and their guide Salvatore (Percy Hogan) and informs Sister Angela that her convent has been attacked by what they presume to be cannibals, and that no survivors remain.

Mark and Emanuelle manage to escape only to watch Donald and Maggie being brutally murdered and Isabelle impregnated by the tribe in preparation for sacrifice.

[4] D'Amato declared that he was "a real copy-cat", and that since "Deodato's film Ultimo mondo cannibale had been so successful we thought about doing something along the same lines commercially.

Describing D'Amato as "the Luchino Visconti of trash" who Roger Ebert would have appreciated, he praised the film for "its egregious excesses, its dimwitted good nature, its commitment to being as happily dumb as possible" and highlighted its positive portrayal of Emanuelle's character and sexuality, as seen when she poses as the tribe's goddess to save Isabelle.

Noting its faithfulness to pulp magazine artwork and tropes, Tafoya concludes his assessment by describing the film as "a sweltering collage of beautiful ruin, like D'Amato put everying put everything burning a hole on Italian movie screens into a pan and boiled them into a delicious reduction.