67
Metascore
9 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 100Slant MagazineChuck BowenSlant MagazineChuck BowenBrook renders savagery with the despairing eye of a humanist, and with the irresolvable ambivalence of an artist.
- 90The DissolveScott TobiasThe DissolveScott TobiasAs it stands, Brook’s adaptation is an encroaching nightmare of innocence lost, following Golding’s thesis about what happens when civilization breaks down and man’s true nature is revealed.
- 80CineVueChristopher MachellCineVueChristopher MachellWilliam Golding’s tale of public schoolboys stranded on a desert island is an iconic depiction of fundamental savagery. More than fifty years on, Peter Brook’s 1963 Lord of the Flies remains the definitive film, its hallucinogenic brutality as terrifying as ever.
- 80The A.V. ClubKeith PhippsThe A.V. ClubKeith PhippsLike Golding's novel, Flies wears its allegorical impulses on its sleeve, but, also like Golding's novel, it rings uncomfortably true.
- 70Time OutTime OutBrook knows he can't have his 10- to 12-year-olds mouthing philosophical and poetic paragraphs, so he shoots it like a documentary, overcoming the starvation budget, the location problems, and the sometimes awkward performances. However, the principals are excellent.
- 50Chicago ReaderDave KehrChicago ReaderDave KehrWilliam Golding's 1954 allegory on man's innate inhumanity is too facile by half, which makes it ideal for high school English classes but rather too gaseous and predictable for the movies.
- 50The New York TimesBosley CrowtherThe New York TimesBosley CrowtherA curiously flat and fragmentary visualization of the original.
- 50TV Guide MagazineTV Guide MagazineThere are some vicious highlights, but the acting is wildly variable, and the film manages to be both overwrought and dull.