Minotaur

In a coastal village of the Iron Age, young people are taken from their families every few years and sent as tribute to a beast known as the Minotaur, which is said to dwell beneath a distant palace. Theo, whose sweetheart was among the sacrificed, refuses to accept that she is dead. Convinced the creature is a fiction and that she survives as a slave, he joins a group of chosen youths and hides aboard the ship carrying them, determined to reach the palace and bring her home. What waits there is a ruler, Deucalion, who offers Theo a bargain, and a labyrinth whose passages few have left alive.

Jonathan English directed this adventure fantasy horror film, his first feature, from a screenplay by Nick Green and Stephen McDool. Tom Hardy plays Theo, with Michelle Van Der Water, Tony Todd, Lex Shrapnel, Jonathan Readwin and Rutger Hauer as Cyrnan among the cast. It was a co-production between Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, Luxembourg, the United States and France, made for about 7 million dollars.

Reaction to the film was weak: it holds a rating of 3.7 out of 10 on IMDb from roughly 5,600 votes, and 4.9 out of 10 on TMDB from a much smaller number of votes. English went on to direct Ironclad in 2011 and My Husband's Double Life in 2018.