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But in the film he hears no voice, there is no revelation of Beelzebub; indeed, the title is left unexplained. Simon simply sees a pig's head on a stick. The orgy at the fireside ("Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!") has swept the boys into frenzy. As Simon scrambles out of the woods, they fall upon him and, making him surrogate for the beast, kill him. A brief and poignant scene follows: in the warm cradle of the surf Simon's small body is rocked to and fro, swaddled in a glimmer of phosphorus until it is carried out to sea.
Flies is flawed in many ways. The 34 amateur actors with British accents rounded up for the filming in Puerto Rico are perfectly type-cast as English schoolboys, and when they open their mouths they sound suitably English—but like schoolboys putting on a play for old boys' day. Their acting, for the most part, seems to be of the old Robert Flaherty documentary school —partly improvised, partly directed through a megaphone—and the read-along quality of the dialogue suggests that part of the picture was shot silent, dubbed later.
Perhaps it was impossible to film Lord of the Flies and keep Golding's harrowing allegory intact. In reducing the novel to a grisly, occasionally shocking adventure story, the producers have chosen not to risk failure. And so they have failed.