Patrick Torres grew up without a father, and now he’s using that experience to make movies and empower foster boys. 

Greek mythology is full of bad dads. Cronus ate his children to circumvent a prophecy when hugging them might have been more effective. Zeus abandoned half a dozen children, whom he typically only acknowledged after they accomplished great deeds the gods could not ignore. 

Houston filmmaker Patrick Torres grew up without a dad, who left before he was born. It left him in search of stories to take the place of an absent father, particularly the video game series “God of War.” In the original Greek trilogy, a Spartan warrior and neglected son of Zeus named Kratos takes vengeance on Mount Olympus after they manipulate him into killing his family. 

“I would always look at like the heroes in movies and video games and sort of try to base what a man should be off of these characters,” said Torres in a phone interview. “And I think I got to a point where I want to put that kind of story back into the world.” 

The result is his upcoming feature film, “Shadow of Zeus,” written, produced, directed, and starring Torres. He plays Aionios, a son of Zeus denied his place on Mount Olympus despite killing a Cyclops. Undeterred, Aionios scales the mountain to demand acceptance. 

Torres began writing the story in 2016. It didn’t start to become a film until 2023 when his fitness apparel and nutritional supplement business, Iron Blood, continued to falter after the pandemic. Despite a delay from a horse-riding injury, he completed a short film proof of concept called “Demon,” which he released in 2025 but just dropped on YouTube June 26. The short won four awards on the festival circuit, including best director at the Austin International Art Festival. He’s launched a Seed&Spark crowdfunding campaign to bolster private investment for the feature.

Creating Ancient Greece

There is very little Ancient Greek architecture in Houston to use as a backdrop, so Torres has taught himself to model settings in the video game engine Unreal, similar to fellow Houston filmmaker Murad Aliyev and his ongoing “Man From Oghuz” series. In fact, Torres has had to teach himself pretty much every aspect of filmmaking from scratch. Luckily, he trained in martial arts at Sword to Sword with Leelund Kim.

Kim is another Houston native. He attended Florida State University’s film school before returning home. His company, Sword Dancer Media, mainly does commercial, corporate, and documentary work, but he yearned to get into narrative filmmaking. Torres, with his energy and drive, was the perfect opportunity and worth giving a crash course in movie magic. The two shared a passion for medieval European martial arts as well as storytelling.

“Working with Patrick has been rewarding because I’ve watched him grow over several years and take on bigger and more ambitious projects,” Kim said in a text interview. “One thing filmmaking teaches pretty quickly is that experience is hard to shortcut. Every project has a way of testing and humbling you. If you push through and show up, you come out better for it. He kept showing up, kept improving, and eventually became someone I could genuinely rely on.” 

Role model

Torres is as much a giver of film knowledge as a receiver. Keen to be the kind of fatherly role model he never had, he volunteers regularly at the Safe Haven Youth Ranch. Typically, the foster home has between 10 – 14 boys on site. Torres teaches them the ins and outs of filmmaking. When production starts, he plans to have them on set as assistants so that they can see their name in the credits of the finished work. 

Yvonne Robinson, the licensed child care administrator at Safe Haven, says that Torres’s visits have been extremely popular with the boys. The ranch has several programs from 4-H to entrepreneurship, but movies bring out a sense of mystery and wonder from the kids.

“There have been a couple of the youth that said that they were interested in filmmaking which we didn’t even know until him and the crew start coming out,” she said in a phone interview. “They remember, and they actually look forward when they know he’s coming so they get dressed they make sure that they’re on time.”

Torres expects the Houston-based production to take roughly four years to complete. Aside from a few CGI pieces from “Demon,” the film will be all new material. He’s looking forward to telling this story, but it’s the participation with the foster kids that truly inspires him. 

“When we have the premiere, I’ll have them out there so then they could actually see all the work they did giant on the screen,” said Torres. “It’s honestly really rewarding on my end, just sort of helping out the community in that way.”

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This article originally published at Houston filmmaker channels fatherless childhood into Greek adventure and community activism.