This is an older book and an older movie, but until recently, I hadn’t read or seen either one. The book, I read as a Buddy Read with Aussie Bookworm and I talked about it in this video:

Book Accuracy

Pretty close to the book. No special effects were required, so the movie doesn’t come off as 25 years old. It wouldn’t be made much differently today. The biggest change was with “the beast.” In the book, this was a parachuter who had gotten stuck in a tree and darkness kept them from seeing that it was just a man hanging there. In the movie, an adult, I believe it was the pilot, was on the island with them. He was injured, unable to help them, and went crazy. He was discovered in a cave, moaning, they believed he was a “beast,” and they killed him.

Characters

The characters felt very accurate to the book, though Jack was a jerk sooner and Piggy was a little more blatantly antagonistic. Ralph was a good leader and the other characters were well acted and true to the book. No other major changes were made besides the adult that was missing in the book.

Plot

Very much the same. There was an added element of the presence of a survival knife that is stolen from Ralph’s camp by Jack and his horde. The groups separate into two faster in the movie, and it’s obvious that the boys had been in military school and that they mostly knew each other at the time of the crash. In the book, they didn’t really know each other and while they seemed to be wearing school uniforms, it wasn’t obviously a military school.

Overall Entertainment

It’s a simple plot that points out the basic depravity of the human spirit. It’s terrifying in its honest nature. This seems like a story that could easily be based in reality.

Movie Trailer

Did you see the movie or read the book? What did you think?