Minotaur (2006)

The Worst Film Ever

Sorry, this movie sucks

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Long ago in the Iron Age, a shadow loomed over a lonely village. For generations, the village youths are stolen from their families and delivered as sacrifice to a mythical beast - the Minotaur that dwells beneath a great palace. Theo, haunted by the loss of his love in an earlier sacrifice is convinced that the beast isn't real, and that his girl still lives as a slave within the palace. Minotaur was one heck of an awful low budget film, the creature looked better than usual but still not good enough, the perfomances were horrible especially Tom Hardy's and the film was more on the romantic side than the horror one that it needed. Definitely one hell of a horrible horror sci-fi movie. (0/10)

The reason why myths like the adventures of Ulysses, Hercules or Theseus survive thousands of years is simply that they are terrific stories worth telling. So quite obviously it was not a good idea from the start to skip the story of the Minotaur completely except that there is a beast and a labyrinth, too. No Athens, no King Minos, no Ariadne, no string for the way out. The script takes us instead to a demonic Crete where a rather African looking, drug inhaling high priest and his sister throw prisoners into the pit until some Northern barbarians start fighting back. The producers better would have made this a fantasy movie with a killer rat in the maze and omit all historical references to the Minotaur myth if they did not intend to use the best parts of it, anyway. Apart from that (and the annoying stupidity of the characters who hide from the beast by shouting a lot), "Minotaur" is an average action movie that deserves an average mark due to its good camera work, lights and editing, I give it that much.

Minotaur - the word itself explains most of the entire movie.As it happened, my girlfriend bought the DVD-release at a local rental-store (used DVD), and thought it would be a good one. Sure, it has a good looking cover-art, and a nice fancy title/logo, but the rest just lacks content.The introduction and start of the movie makes it feel like at least a partly good one, though during its continuation, it clearly shines through as what it really is: A piece of utter wasted time and money.Do not buy or watch this movie, it's so bad you sit there thinking if you should have done the dishes or mopped the floor instead - as that would really give more excitement than this flop.To sum it up: if one could give a movie a dice-throw instead of the 1-10 rating, I would not even have thrown the dice.Oh, good thing about the DVD-buy on our side: We got a spare DVD-cover for something else - a bit expensive perhaps...

After the queen of Crete conceives a child with a bull, a monster is born: the Minotaur. Now, every so often a group of young men and women must be sacrificed to him as a "tax". But this time, one man (Theo) is determined to end its hunger forever.Although this film only came out last year, it seems like I must have walked past it in the video store one hundred times, each time picking it up and setting it down. "Is it possible that a straight-to-video movie about a minotaur could be any good?" I thought. And always I answered, "no." But after finally biting the bullet, I must confess: this movie had some strong points to it.The best thing going for this movie was Tony Todd ("Candyman"). Todd never disappoints and he is served in large doses throughout this film. You would think a horror icon wouldn't have much more than a cameo here, but he is a central character and plays himself off to be the most menacing tyrant imaginable. Has Tony Todd ever disappointed you? Probably not, and the more we get the better the film.I also like the exploration of sexuality this film offers. I have seen a great many shower scenes or teen sex scenes and they're often forgettable. Here we have something a little different. There's a very passionate love scene (though not technically sex) between the main character (Theo) and the female villain (Tony Todd's character's sister). Very well shot. And of course the opening scene with a woman being mounted by a bull. I cannot recall ever seeing that in a film before and likely never will again.The special effects were alright for a lower budget film. The minotaur himself was just alright, nothing special, but I thought they did a fine job with him as a child. The really best thing was what I guess would be called the cinematography -- the coloring of the different scenes, giving it a very mythical look.The story deviates from the legend in a number of respects, but unless you're a really picky fan of Greek mythology, you probably won't care and most people won't even notice. I thought a few things seemed off, but it wasn't until I researched the story afterwards it became clear. I don't think any less of the story or film because of the discrepancies.If you're like me and you kept avoiding this film, give in to your instincts. I think you'll be surprised. And if you're let down, at least you won't have to pick up this movie another hundred times. You can move on to something a little riskier, like "Kottontail".