VHS : Lord Of The Flies [1990]

Rating: - Utter Rubbish
The other reviews say it all.Buy the orignal Peter Brook film which is faithful to the book. In fact seeing it acted out in the original film is even more chilling.

This is a shallow travesty which you should not waste your money on.

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Rating: - Buy Peter Brook's film instead
Golding's story is entirely misrepresented. The makers of this film think it's about 'civilised' youngsters reverting to 'savagery' when left to their own devices, when really it's about the 'civilised' education and conditioning we receive which de facto brings about such behaviour in any circumstance, not just a desert island. Golding would not have made any distinction between military uniforms, ruffs and cassocks or body paint.

The film by itself has no tension, no horror, no development, no resonance, and the child actors fail with the script because it doesn't match the way they think and speak. Instead they are made to say politically correct rubbish like 'We have to work togetherrrr!'

The major achievement of these film-makers has been to render Golding's parable completely anodyne. The music score's liberal (and often literal) borrowing from Stravinsky's Rite of Spring is so cretinous it beggars belief.

Peter Brook's 1963 film, by contrast, is so powerful and disturbing you wonder why they bothered with a re-make. James Aubrey's portrayal of Ralph in Brook's film is astonishing - Robert de Niro could learn a lot from this performance. Brook's film has one of the most unforgettable and surreal sequences ever committed to celluloid: a line of fully robed choristers marching along the beach singing 'Kyrie Eleison'. The Hook film, on the other hand, has no striking image in it at all: the pig's head looks endearing rather than horrific.

So how could they have got it so wrong? Golding would probably know. So buy Peter Brook's film, and don't waste your money on this drivel.

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Rating: - Lords it over many other films
I really enjoyed the book, but I can't recall many fine details of the plot which some people argue the film doesn't abide by. However, when I first watched this film the book was still fresh in my mind. I don't think this version of the film is as bad as other people make out. I thought the child actors were some of the best I've ever seen, and they made this film as brutal and shocking as the book was. The killing scenes are particularly gripping; I remember being quite alarmed in parts, and I'm not normally disturbed by things like that. In short, I think it's well worth a watch.

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Rating: - Another viewer
I too am an English (Brit. Lit.) teacher. I agree with those who are disappointed by this adaptation of Golding's Lord of the Flies. The only reason I will be showing this version to my students is for the purposes of a Venn diagram (compare/contrast). The differences/inaccuracies are so innumerable, it will be blatantly obviously which students only viewed the film rather than reading the assigned literature.

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Rating: - Awful
I have taught this novel for 8 years. This film's glaring error is to ignore and often to reverse the harrowing moral message of the original novel.

The original locates the capacity for evil within all of us and portrays civilization as a fragile surface beneath which lurks 'the darkness of man's heart'. Golding chose public schoolboys to be isolated on his island so the very 'pinnacle' of innocence and civilization was subverted when they turned to murder, sacrifice, and idolatry.

In this disastrous adaptation, there is a simplistic divide of the boys into 'good guys' who remain untainted by evil and 'bad guys' Moreover, the boys start as military cadets; when they turn to hunting it hardly surprises us. Jack, instead of changing from Head Chorister to The Chief of a tribe of savages, starts off as a delinquent and becomes...a delinquent. The character development is therefore omitted. The moral message becomes a conservative reinforcement of a good/evil division between people.

Golding would be mortified by this travesty of a film.