Like most nerdy kids, I went through a Greek mythology phase in my youth. And among geeky disappointments like finding out that Hercules was actually a jerk and realizing that Xena: Warrior Princess wasn’t a canonical Greek hero, I was also pretty bummed by the fact that filmmakers never seemed to get my favorite mythic […]
Like most nerdy kids, I went through a Greek mythology phase in my youth. And among geeky disappointments like finding out that Hercules was actually a jerk and realizing that Xena: Warrior Princess wasn’t a canonical Greek hero, I was also pretty bummed by the fact that filmmakers never seemed to get my favorite mythic yarn right – that of Theseus and the Minotaur.
In fact, I still think that we’ve yet to see a definitive cinematic take on this ancient tale of bovine terror, but that doesn’t mean there haven’t been some honorable attempts at turning the story into a thrilling movie. So today, I’d like to look back on a mostly forgotten movie that attempts to re-imagine the myth as a fantasy-horror epic akin to Mathew Robbins’ Dragonslayer. Naturally, I’m referring to Jonathan English’s 2006 Sci-Fi original Minotaur, an ambitious creature feature that I believe has more redeeming value than its detractors would have you believe.
Jonathan English is no stranger to incorporating horrific elements into his action-heavy work, with his heavy-metal siege movie Ironclad almost feeling like a medieval John Carpenter flick, but Minotaur remains the director’s scariest endeavor. A horror film with strangely epic sensibilities, the project was backed by a myriad of overseas production companies who managed to scrounge together $7 million dollars for a fantasy blockbuster that was supposed to be shot like a slasher movie.
Relocating the production to Luxemburg due to the country’s tax breaks, English managed to secure enough leftover funding to recruit an assortment of talented thespians that could bring this ancient world to life. And while the auxiliary cast is mostly makes up for recycled sets and questionable costume designs, the director’s biggest achievement here was in recognizing the young Tom Hardy as a respectable leading man despite the actor’s troubled history with indie productions (as well as an arrest-record that prevented him from shooting in America at the time).
In the finished film, which premiered on SyFy in March of 2006 (back when the network was still called The Sci-Fi Channel), we’re presented with the Bronze-Age story that supposedly inspired the original Greek myth of the Minotaur. Instead of Theseus, we follow a young man named Theo (Hardy), a shepherd from the village of “Thena” who decides to challenge the tyranny of King Deucalion () after years of seeing his countrymen being taken away to be sacrificed to the fearsome Bull God that resides underneath the Minos Empire.