One of the darkest books you may have read in high school is getting a Netflix adaptation. The trailer for Lord of the Flies just dropped, proving that there’s a lot to fear about the phrase “boys will be boys.”

The upcoming series premiered on the BBC back in February and is now heading to Netflix. Based on William Golding’s 1954 novel and written by Adolescence writer Jack Thorne, Lord of the Flies tells the story of a group of British schoolboys who crash-land on a deserted island. As they are forced to fend for themselves, leaders fight for power and allegiances form — until the island spirals into chaos.

The trailer opens with the plane going down, and the boys screaming in terror. But the real danger is on the island. As the boys shed their buttoned-up uniforms and embrace the ferality of the island, natural-born leader Ralph (Winston Sawyers) butts heads with the cruel, power-hungry Jack (Lox Pratt, the new Draco Malfoy in the upcoming Harry Potter television series.)

“If you stand out of the way, he’d happily hurt the next thing,” the glasses-wearing Piggy (David McKenna) warns Ralph. “And the next thing is me.”

If you know how the novel ends, you’ll know that Piggy has every reason to worry.

The trailer also hints at the titular “Lord of the Flies,” aka a severed boar’s head on a stick. And it also teases of the existence of “the beast,” which the boys become convinced lurks on the island. “Kill the beast, slit its throat,” the boys chant. But as your English teacher once possibly asked you to write a 2,000-word essay on: is there really a beast — or does the beast simply live within the boys?

Like Adolescence — the 2025 Netflix mini series which explores why a young man would commit a heinous act of violence — Lord of the Flies unpacks how a quest for power pushes boys toward unspeakable acts. “I hope it takes people back to the book, and I hope it allows people to lean into what the book really is, in my opinion — a difficult and dangerous account of who we are and what we’re capable of,” Thorne told Tudum.

While this is the first Lord of the Flies TV series, the book has been adapted for film twice, in 1963 and 1990. And Lord of the Flies has influenced television indirectly, with shows borrowing elements of its plot. The reality series Survivor, which debuted in 2000 and is still going strong, was inspired by Lord of the Flies. Mystery series Lost has also drawn comparisons to the novel, as it followed a group of plane crash survivors who land on a strange island. More recently, the young adult series The Wilds and Yellowjackets — both of which involve a group of teenage girls surviving a plane crash and ending up stranded away from civilization — echo Lord of the Flies in how the characters engage in power struggles and inflict violence on each other as a result of their isolation.

Lord of the Flies hits Netflix on May 4.