Cronos (1994)
R1 / NTSC DVD
Lionsgate / 2003
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
Written by Guillermo del Toro
Cast: Federico Luppi, Ron Perlman, Claudio Brook, Margarita Isabel, Tamara Shanath
Review by Vaughn Drake
In 1536, an alchemist creates the Cronos device, a small egg shaped vessel supposedly capable of granting eternal life. 400 hundred years later, the same alchemist, now white marble faced and oddly aged, dies in a building collapse, his life ending and his device seemingly lost to the world.
Jesús Gris is a grandfather and operator of a tiny antiques shop. One day a shady looking man walks in, and is stunned by one of Jesús’s wrapped archangel statues. He leaves without purchasing it, and Jesús becomes curious to the man’s reaction to the statue
. He unwraps it, inspects it and finds the Cronos device. Not knowing what it is, but certainly curious as to why a gold statuette is hidden inside another statue, he plays with it. Before he knows it, spiderlike talons sink into his hand, drawing blood into it, and feeding back into him, his own filtered blood. The device now makes Jesús crave blood and unknowingly, Jesús has become a vampire.
Another emissary arrives and purchases the statue, not knowing Jesús has discovered the device previously hidden inside. He takes the statue to his boss, an aging recluse who has spent the better part of his life searching for this particular statue, knowing, thanks to his research, that the device should safely hidden inside. Not finding it, he is angered and will stop at nothing to retrieve it. All the while Jesús seeks blood…
Cronos is del Toro’s first feature film, and he did a fantastic job with a very limited budget. The opening four minutes alone could easily rival the largest budgeted Hollywood film in scope and beauty. He got great performances from the main cast and a morbidly cute performance from the mortician. While this is not as technically savvy as Pan’s Labyrinth, or even The Devil’s backbone, it does herald the coming of del Toro, one of our generations true cinema masters.
After you’ve watched the film, make sure to spend some time with the disk’s extra features. del Toro is passionate about his films, and listening to him speak in the featurette and commentary track is a blast. For instance, the budget was so limited, that in order to film the interior shots of the Cronos device, he needed to sell his van in order to obtain needed funds: a cool nugget of information, for a cool little movie.
Del Toro created a new spin on vampires, forging Catholic and alchemist influences with entomology to form a unique take on a tired and overused genre. Del Toro rightfully deserves all the credit he gets for being a true film auteur and not a horror hack, and this early del Toro film should not be missed.
