Lord of the Flies Crew Used Machetes on Uninhabited
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- Jack Thorne's four-part Netflix adaptation deliberately extends Piggy's death — which happens instantly in William Golding's 1954 novel — to show the persistence of the Ralph-Piggy relationship, according to director Marc Munden.
- Marc Munden insisted on filming on an uninhabited island reached by boat, where the crew cut holes with machetes so cameras could pass through; Thorne called it "completely stupid" but said Munden wanted the island to be "a character in the show."
- David McKenna (Piggy) and Winston Sawyers (Ralph) read the death scene early in rehearsals but didn't film it until the end of the shoot; McKenna described having to physically give his weight to Sawyers during the scene.
- Humidity complicated the shoot — halfway through the day, McKenna lifted a chunk of his hair and found the fake blood stuck to it.
- Marc Munden directed the scene with "restraint," using a two-shot rather than a one-shot, and said "people were in pieces behind the monitors" with "a hushed reverence" from the young cast.
- Thorne, who wasn't on set for filming, said rewatching Piggy's death "makes me cry every time" and that each viewing reveals "a new detail on those two actors' faces."
- The scene anchors Ralph's character arc from mistreating Piggy to "learning that, actually, he is a human being with a heart a mile wild," according to Thorne.
Why it matters: The adaptation's biggest emotional set piece was filmed on a remote island with no infrastructure, requiring the crew to physically cut paths for cameras — a production gamble that paid off in the young leads' raw performances, with Munden's deliberate restraint elevating a two-shot composition over conventional close-ups to land the emotional payload.
