CRONOS (1993)

The feature on which Mexican director Guillermo del Toro cut his fantastic cinema teeth may come as a surprise to anyone more familiar with his recent offerings. Almost the complete opposite to his more accessible popcorn movies made for the mainstream US market today, Cronos is very much the product of a man eager to add depth and colour to his characters giving the Cronos experience a very European flavour focusing more on the films style rather than its pace. At best it can be described as a unique slice of sympathetic horror from a man clearly in love with his trade, but its steady pace and alternate approach to the vampire mythos may dissuade those with an insatiable demand for eye candy.
The film opens in 1535 as an ancient alchemist sets about inventing a device which will gift its operator the power of eternal youth thanks to a small parasitic insect encased in an ornate golden shell. Unfortunately for him, he is killed shortly after, leaving his invention hidden inside a statuette where it lies undiscovered for over 450 years, eventually coming to reside on the shelf of curio shopkeeper Jesús Gris (Federico Luppi). Jesús is a respectable man of senior years who lives with his wife Mercedes (Margarita Isabel) and timid granddaughter Aurora (Tamara Shanath), but it’s not long before Jesús discovers the golden trinket, known as the Cronos device, hidden inside the statuette and winds the mechanical creature into life. In awe of the devices intricacies, the shopkeeper and his niche are suddenly shocked when small golden legs unfold and spear Jesús round the hand. Blooded and shocked, Jesús removes the device and discards it, but it isn’t long before he gets the urge to try the device again. Seemingly under its addictive spell, he begins to feel a powerful vigour flowing though his body, but little does he realise the horrible side effects which will eventually consume his flesh. Slowly developing a lust for blood and an aversion to sunlight, his problems begin to mount as dying millionaire Dieter de la Guardia (Claudio Brook) uses his brutish nephew (Ron Perlman) to hunt down the fabled device in order to restore his failing health.

Classed as a horror film, Cronos has more in common with a dark gothic drama than an all out assault on the nervous system. Aside from the few scenes of vampire related splatter, its story meanders through the realms of misfortune, obsession and retribution with little care for shallow gains and big money-shots. This is an intimate story about average people caught in circumstance beyond their control. Reflecting shades of early Clive Barker and David Cronenberg oozing from the films theme, it’s hard to imagine just what happened to Guillermo del Toro over the years between Cronus and the ridiculous Hellboy, two films which are so opposing you would consider them to be from different filmmakers.
The amount of dialogue delivered by the films actors is very limited, with Toro relying more on visual drama to convey his message rather than multiple pages of wasted script. The film is mostly accompanied with English subtitles to aid the Spanish translation but the odd spot of recognisable lingo does creep in thanks mostly to Perlam’s character. Perlman has always managed to impress me in just about every role he’s taken (even Alien Resurrection) and his part as the oppressed nephew is no exception as he breezes through his scenes with an air of playful authority. His broad grin always seems reminiscent of a crocodile just before it opens its huge mouth and bites your head clean off and the brutishly violent character he plays here melds well with this persona. Perhaps the most notable interaction in the film isn’t the volatile hatred demonstrated so perfectly by Perlman and his sick onscreen uncle played by the late Mexican actor Claudio Brook, but the tender relationship between Federico Luppi and Tamara Shanath characters. Despite the lack of any compounding dialogue, their relationship is heart-warmingly evident as Jesús is slowly overwhelmed with vampirism.

Optimum Home Entertainment have kept the quality of their UK DVD release high thanks to a great directors commentary and a couple of intriguing interviews. As mentioned, Cronos has a great commentary with Guillermo del Toro which is a wonderful insight not only into the film but also into the mind of this passionate director. To compliment this we have a 59 minute subtitled interview where Toro talks about his early filmmaking days and progresses on to plot the history of Cronos. The second and less inspiring interview is an 8 minute piece in the company of cinematographer Guillermo Navarro who chats about the visual styling of the film. We then move on to a short 5 minute feature cheekily touted as a ‘Making of feature’, but in reality contains a small amount of behind the scenes footage but is mostly spent in the company of Federico Luppi who gushes over the seemingly life changing effects of the film. The disk also features a gaggle of production photo’s ranging from design, storyboard and behind the scenes. To close out the disk we have a bunch of trailers including one for Toro’s ghostly 2001 film The Devil’s Backbone.