In 1957, explorer Stewart McAlden and his team smuggle a captured Sumatran rat-monkey, a Hybrid (mythology) creature that resulted from the rape of tree monkeys by plague-carrying rats, out of Skull Island. During the team's escape from the island's warrior natives, who demand the return of the creature, Stewart is bitten by the rat-monkey and is hacked to pieces by his crew, who fear the effects of the bite. The captured rat-monkey is then shipped to Wellington Zoo in New Zealand.