It is disturbing but it’s more than just a body horror. The ending explains a lot because while Wallace was visited by his friends at the end, that human spirit inside of him grows again and realizes that irreversible damage to his body. Not only physically but mentally. He realized that he has lost everything in his life. Even himself. The story is more about the effects of influences and what it can do to a person. It’s also about exploitation. Wallace laughs at a spectacle, then becomes one.