Minotaur (film)


Minotaur is a 2006 horror film, directed by Jonathan English. It stars Tom Hardy, Tony Todd, Ingrid Pitt and Rutger Hauer. It was filmed in Luxembourg, and is a loose retelling of the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur.

Plot

In the Minoan Bronze Age, a shadow loomed over the village of Thena. Every three years, under King Deucalion's order, eight youths are taken from the village to the capital of the Minos' Empire. There, they are placed in an underground labyrinth to be sacrifices to the Minotaur, the Minoan god.
Theo, son of Cyrnan, the village chieftain, is haunted by the loss of his love, Fion, in an earlier sacrifice. A leprous prophetess tells him that Fion is still alive in the labyrinth. Against his father's wishes, he replaces one of the sacrifices and is taken to the Minos Empire capitol. Other captives are Danu, Morna, Tyro Didi Vena, Ziko and Nan.
After the group are dropped into the labyrinth, the Minotaur immediately begins hunting them and kills Nan. The survivors are approached by Queen Raphaella, Deucalion's sister and unwilling lover, who offers them a way out. Vena does not believe her, and when she attempts to leave the group, the Minotaur impales her in the back of her head with its horn. The rest of the group evade the Minotaur and, led by Raphaella, they get to a chamber at the center of the labyrinth. There, the monster lies asleep on its victims' remains, and a heavy wooden door leads out of the labyrinth. Raphaella had arranged for her servant Ramaya to open the door from the other side, but Deucalion catches the servant and has her executed. Desperate, the group attempt to break down the door. The noise wakes the Minotaur, which kills Ziko and splits up the group.
Theo, Danu, and Morna encounter Turag, a villager from a previous offering. Turag has managed to elude the Minotaur thus far, but has become slightly insane over the years. Looking at the map of the labyrinth Turag has drawn, Theo learns of Fion's supposed location and goes off alone to find her. However, he eventually discovers her corpse, and realizes that she was poisoned by an underground gas deposit. Meanwhile, Tyro and Didi find one of the holes that they were dropped through. Tyro climbs up and reaches down to pull up Didi. As the Minotaur arrives, Didi panics, loses her grip and falls onto one of its horns. The Minotaur then corners Danu and Morna, and Danu sacrifices himself to save his lover.
Raphaella reaches Theo again and explains the Minotaur's origin. Her mother gave herself to bestiality to create a living god, and gave birth to the Minotaur. As the monster grew, so did its appetite, culminating in it murdering Deucalion's brother. Theo's village was blamed for the prince's death, resulting in the human sacrifices to appease the Minotaur while ensuring Minos' own survival. Raphaella sent the leper to find someone in the village capable of killing the Minotaur, and thus the leper lied to Theo about Fion's survival to make him face the beast.
Theo discovers the underground natural gas vent in the labyrinth. When the Minotaur prepares to kill Theo, Tyro sacrifices himself to distract it. Theo tempts the Minotaur into attacking him, and lures it towards the gas vent. He then creates a spark with Fion's amulet. The gas ignites, engulfing part of the labyrinth, while Theo and Raphaella survive by diving into a pond of water. They emerge from the water as the flames die out, and find the beast still alive and enraged. As the Minotaur charges at him, Theo takes the monster's horn which was broken earlier, and impales it in the mouth. It keeps charging forward, and collides with a rock which drives the horn through its head, finally killing it.
Theo and Raphaella reunite with Morna and Turag and leave the collapsing labyrinth. On the surface, they find out that the explosion also collapsed the palace and fatally wounded Deucalion. Raphaella smothers him to death, ending the cycle of fanaticism. The Minos' empire ends with the deaths of the Minotaur and Deucalion; Theo becomes a legend for killing the monster.

Cast

Minotaur was released on DVD by Lions Gate on June 20, 2006. Maple Pictures would also release the film in Canada that same day. It was later released by Brightspark on September 3, 2007.

Reception

Jeremy Wheeler from Allmovie gave the film a negative review, calling it "highly forgettable". In his review, Wheeler wrote that, although it had a strong first act, the film was undone by slow pacing, and an unimpressive or scary monster design.
Jon Condit from Dread Central awarded the film a score of three out of five, writing, "Minotaur is the sort of film that if you paid to see it in a movie theater you'd probably come out not so much disliking the film as feeling a bit underwhelmed by it. But as far as Sci-Fi Channel premieres and direct-to-DVD movies go these day, Minotaur is an above average monster movie that's definitely worth a look. If for no other reason, see it just for whatever it is Tony Todd is doing here."
Digital Retribution awarded the film a score of three out of five, calling it "fairly mediocre".
Popcorn Pictures gave the film a score of five out of ten, writing "Minotaur is an underwhelming experience. It's totally formulaic but somehow different. You'll feel like you've just watched something like The Relic again but then the whole mythological spin immediately throws that out of your mind. The jury is still out."
Lindsay Ellis from The Mary Sue wrote a highly critical review of the film. In it, she criticized many features of the film as being cliches of its genre, such as racially biased casting with "uncomfortably exoticized non-white deviant baddies" playing the role of antagonists in the film, poor worldbuilding which she calls "totally-not-ripped-off-from-Lord of the Rings" and scenes of an overly sexual nature which she claims are inserted "in the most porn parody way imaginable".