Vampire Flicks: Cronos (1993)

I have a feeling that I first learned of Guillermo del Toro in either my second or third year of high school Spanish in the early 2000's. Every so often, our Spanish teacher, who was from Mexico, would give us the latest issues of a Mexican magazine and I can remember one had a story on a well-known Mexican horror filmmaker. I only vaguely remember it, as I really didn't pay much attention to it and I didn't have to do an assignment around it, but I'm sure it was del Toro, as I do remember the director being a heavyset guy with a beard and glasses. But it wasn't until I saw Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments, which featured both him as a talking head and his movie, The Devil's Backbone, in the actual list, and the Masters of Horror documentary in October of 2004 that I truly learned who del Toro was. There were several things about him I noted right off the bat. One was how well-spoken and articulate he was in English. Second was how much of a true fan he was of the genre, talking about the steady stream of classic horror he saw growing up, how he knew from the start that it was the genre he wanted to work in, and that when people asked if he was upset about being typed as a horror director, he would tell them, "No, it took me a long time to be that!" Third was how odd he could be, claiming that he saw monsters in his room when he was a kid and that he promised to be their friend so he could get past them in order to go to the bathroom. Instead of thinking he was a fool for that, I just smiled about it. And finally, those specials were where I first learned of some of his other movies, chief among them actually being Blade II. Looking back at Masters of Horror on YouTube, I can see that Cronos was discussed, quite extensively, in fact, but it left no impression on me at all. In fact, even though I watched the documentary a second time many years later, I didn't remember Cronos until the Criterion Collection put it out and it was free to watch on Hulu back when they had a deal with Criterion. By that point, I had seen The Devil's Backbone, as well as Mimic, and had enjoyed them both, so I was up for seeing more of del Toro's work. However, I procrastinated too much and missed my chance to see Cronos on Hulu, and wouldn't finally see it until the summer of 2018, when I bought the Criterion Collection's "Trilogia de Guillermo del Toro" set, where it comes with The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth. And as expensive as that set is (I bought for over $100 at Barnes & Noble), trust me when I tell you it's worth every penny.

Going into it, all I knew was that it was del Toro's feature debut and was a unique take on the vampire subgenre... as well as that it had Ron Perlman, which is always a plus. And before we go any further, I want to say this is only the second of del Toro's films I've reviewed on here, with the first being Pacific Rim, which I did not too long before I bought that Blu-Ray set. Back then, he was a director I mostly just admired and had enjoyed every film of his I'd seen. But going through that set, as well as watching The Shape of Water around that same time, changed everything... del Toro became a director I absolutely love. Going through all of those movies at that time, especially his Spanish-language films, made me realize how he is nothing less than a freaking genius and a definite auteur (it still amazes me how he's able to make thoughtful, arty movies like this, as well as big budget, popcorn movies in Hollywood, and yet, you can tell they're all from the same man). As for Cronos, it was a movie I enjoyed immensely on that first viewing and has only gotten better with each subsequent one. It definitely is a unique take on the vampire (everything del Toro does is a very different take on its subject matter) but, more than that, it's a beautifully-made film that also has a genuine heart to it and tells a story that's just as touching and sweet as it is occasionally gruesome, violent, and melancholy.

In 1536, Uberto Fulcanelli, an alchemist, flees the Spanish Inquisition and arrives in Veracruz, Mexico. Appointed watchmaker to the viceroy, Fulcanelli, seeking eternal life, creates the Cronos Device, a mechanism that provides its user with such a gift. Centuries later, in 1937, an old building collapses and Fulcanelli, having lived on for over 400 years, his skin as white as marble, is found among the rubble. He dies from his heart being pierced by a chunk of debris, after which the police search his residence, making the grisly discovery of a corpse being drained of all its blood. The house and everything in it is then sold at a public auction, but the Cronos Device is never found. Decades later, in the 1990's, Mexican antique dealer Jesus Gris discovers that an item in his shop, an archangel statue, which sparked the interest of a mysterious customer, is missing its left eye. Later, cockroaches emerge from the hole, and as he and his young granddaughter, Aurora, inspect the statue, he finds the base is hollow. Removing it, he finds a golden, scarab-shaped device inside. Fiddling around with it, he winds up a dial on its exterior, only for the device to deploy small, spider-like legs, grip onto his hand, and stab deep into his palm. Late that night, Jesus begins to feel strange cravings, including a taste for raw meat and blood, and uses the device once again. The next morning, when he looks at himself in the mirror, the old man realizes he's regaining his youth and is feeling healthier. Unfortunately for him, Dieter de la Guardia, a rich businessman who's dying of cancer, has been researching the Cronos Device for the past 40 years, ever since he found Fulcanelli's notes. Having traced it to Jesus, Dieter is determined to get his hands on it and use it to prolong his own life. He has his brutish nephew, Angel, ransack Jesus' store to find it, and when that turns up nothing, Angel is forced to beat the information out of him. At the same time, Jesus begins to experience the side-effects of the device, such as a stronger appetite for blood, sensitivity to sunlight, and his skin peeling off, revealing new, marble-colored flesh underneath. Although Aurora still accepts and loves her grandfather, Jesus worries that his wife, Mercedes, may not feel the same way when the time comes for her to see him.

Guillermo del Toro is one of many directors of several generations who began making movies early in life, using his dad's Super 8 to make little shorts with his toys, and he also made a number of actual short films throughout the 80's, the last of which, 1987's Geometria, is an extra on the Criterion Collection's release of Cronos. In addition, he wrote and directed several episodes of La hora marcada, a Mexican anthology series in the vein of The Twilight Zone, which ran from 1986 to 1990. Besides directing, del Toro also studied the art of special effects because, as he said in the Masters of Horror documentary, there were no special effects technicians in Mexico at the time. He trained under the legendary Dick Smith and was himself an effects artist himself for ten years, creating a workshop called Necropia and working on various other films, as well as doing the effects on his own shorts. They went on to become the largest effects company in Mexico, but after Cronos, del Toro closed them down. Cronos itself was an idea he first came up with back in 1984, when he was inspired to create a completely different type of vampire, and a big inspiration for the details of the story was his own grandmother, who became terribly ill while he was writing the script and died after years of being bedridden (the film is dedicated to her). Though it ultimately didn't do much in the United States, as it was shown in just two theaters in December of 1993, it got almost universal praise and that was enough to get del Toro's filmmaking career going. That said, though, he would have to go through the frustrating experience of Mimic before he was fully able to become the auteur he is now.

Cronos is one of a long line of movies featuring people transforming into something inhuman, but what I like about its approach to the story is how Jesus Gris' (Federico Luppi) metamorphosis is very different from the norm, both in what brings it on and how he himself reacts to it. Jesus starts out as a very kind man in his early 60's, who owns an antique shop and absolutely dotes on his granddaughter, Aurora, who's lived with him and his wife ever since her parents died. One day, Jesus notices a man who walks into his store, looks at a couple of statues there, then leaves without saying anything or asking for assistance. Noting that one of the statues has an eye missing, and later finding it to be infested with cockroaches, Jesus fiddles with it and, within its hollow base, finds the Cronos Device. Knowing it's something unique and interesting, he removes it and later fiddles around with it. He unknowingly activates it by winding it up, after which it grabs onto him and pierces into his palm. Later, at home, he has his wife, Mercedes, treat his bloody wound, telling her that he fell onto some broken glass. She removes a metal filing from deep within his palm and, that night, he begins to feel the effects. First, he develops a terrible thirst, and after guzzling down almost an entire pitcher of water, he feels tempted to eat some raw meat in the fridge. He's able to resist this urge, but when he feels restless later, particularly towards his bandaged hand, attempting to cut off the bandages and even biting at them in order to get at the bloody wound, he uses the Cronos Device again, this time at the bottom of the stairs. He quickly recites the Lord's Prayer before it digs into him and though, like before, it's initially painful, when it completes the process, injecting him with a strange solution, he feels a whole lot better.

Jesus feels especially good when he looks at himself in the mirror the next morning and sees that he looks far more youthful: his wrinkles are disappearing, his jowls aren't as saggy, his hair is thicker, and he doesn't need his glasses. He then gets the idea to shave his mustache, making him look especially youthful, which doesn't go unnoticed by Mercedes. But then, he gets to his shop to find it completely ransacked, with a card from De La Guardia Enterprises on his desk. Going

to the factory, he meets with Dieter de la Guardia, who tells him of the Cronos Device's past, as well as it how functions and the strict rules that come with its use. But now that he's gotten a taste of the device's power, Jesus refuses to give it up, and while de la Guardia allows him to leave, he tells him that he's keeping the "instructions" and that he's not going to relent. Returning home, Jesus finds the Cronos Device missing. Realizing that Aurora, who's noticed the change in him, has it, he

rushes up to her little hiding place on the roof. Initially seeming like an angry addict who's going to attack her out of desperation, he searches the room for her, but when he finds her hiding out of fear, he calms down and has a nice moment with her. Sipping some tea, he tells her how, when her father was her age, he destroyed his cigarettes in an attempt to keep him from getting lung cancer but that it did nothing to help. However, he says he understood that he was concerned for him, telling her, "I don't know what's wrong with me. But I

think it's best if we're together." After that, Aurora gives him back the device, which she'd hid in the stuffing of her teddy bear, and the two of them have a sweet embrace. Cut to New Year's Eve, when the family goes out to a party, but not before Jesus uses the device again, this time on his chest. He then finds a sticky solution secreting from the holes in his skin, which themselves then heal up completely. At the party, Jesus and Mercedes have a nice, romantic dance, and she also finds that he's become more amorous. But when he sees a man

with a bleeding nose, he follows him to the restroom, desperate for the blood, to the point where he laps some of it off the floor. He's then ambushed and abducted by Angel de la Guardia, who takes him to an abandoned area. Angel beats on Jesus, demanding he tell him where the Cronos Device is, only to beat him into unconsciousness. He then puts him in the car and pushes it over the cliff in an attempt to kill him. However, while Jesus is badly injured, he doesn't die, and after remaining unconscious during visitation at the funeral home, he escapes the undertaker's before he can be cremated.

Wandering the streets, his skin now looking damaged and diseased, and peeling off in various spots, Jesus scrounges through a garbage can, only to find a newspaper with a clipping regarding his recent death. He attempts to call home and speak to Mercedes, but while she hangs up on him when he says her name, Aurora, who eavesdropped on the call, takes her grandfather in and gives him a place to stay and sleep in the small storage area atop the building. After he initially found it a bit too bright 

for his eyes, the two of them then learn that exposure to sunlight is now potentially deadly to him. To shield him from the sunlight, Aurora gives him a makeshift coffin in the form of a toy-box. Jesus also attempts to write a letter to Mercedes, telling her that he's still alive but is in awful pain, thirsting for blood, and doesn't feel like the person he once was. He also tells her that he must go settle some "unfinished business" and he hopes, once it's over, she will welcome him back, despite his

appearance. He goes back to the De La Guardia factory to look through the ancient manuscript Dieter showed him and find a way to cure himself... only to learn Dieter has destroyed the pages. Dieter also shows him how he's being reborn when he peels off parts of his rotting skin to reveal new skin underneath, and tells him he must feed on human blood. Wanting no more of this, Jesus threatens to destroy the Cronos Device, but Dieter tells him doing so would doom him. He offers Jesus a "way out" in exchange for the device,

only to stab him when he gives it over. Fortunately for Jesus, Aurora knocks Dieter unconscious, and Jesus, when he sees him bleeding, bites into his neck and feeds on him (the only person he directly does this to). Jesus and Angel then get into a skirmish that leads to the roof of the factory and ends with them falling and smashing through a glass ceiling. While Angel dies, Jesus survives and Aurora uses the Cronos Device to awaken him. Upon his revival, he removes more chunks of flesh from his torso, and then sees that Aurora's hand is

bleeding. Though he hungers for the blood, he quickly comes to his senses and angrily destroys the device. Despite what Dieter said, he doesn't die. Declaring, "I am Jesus Gris," he returns home with Aurora and, lying in bed, covered completely in his new skin, and with both Aurora and Mercedes by his side, waits to see what morning will bring.

I think it's obvious from the outset that Guillermo del Toro definitely succeeded in creating a vampire unlike anything that had been seen before. While some of the usual tropes do apply, like the hunger for blood, the sensitivity to sunlight, the resting in a coffin of some sort, and death only coming through being pierced in the heart, the origin and depiction of this type of vampire are totally unique. Rather than an undead ghoul, it's a person who's been given the "gift" of immortality through this

mechanism, but they have to cope with the unfortunate side-effects, which also include addiction to its use and a hunger for blood that grows painful if not satisfied. Also, like an insect going through a metamorphosis and molting into a completely new form, the vampire's human skin first begins to secrete a sticky, webbing-like substance, before drying out and peeling off, revealing a new, marble-white skin underneath. In fact, there are many connections between this creature and insects, with the device itself being

shaped like a scarab and containing an insect within its inner-workings that injects the user with the solution that grants eternal life. And the way vampires are all about resurrection is akin to how certain insects can lay dormant until they're released from wherever they entomb themselves, with the insect inside the device having lived for over 400 years itself.

In the book that comes with La Trilogia de Guillermo del Toro are included his own extensive notes for Cronos, which contain, among other things, small biographies for each character. In it, he says that Aurora's (Tamara Shanath) parents were killed in a car crash when she was only two, which is why she lives with her grandparents, something that's never mentioned in the film itself. Also not explained is why she never speaks until the very end of the movie, which isn't even clarified in the notes. However, what is clear is how close she is to and dependent on Jesus, as she spends almost every waking moment with him, including spending time at his antique store. She's with him when he first finds the Cronos Device, as well as when he accidentally activates it and it injects him. The sight of this horrifies her, as she was already unsure about the device, and she's also the first to notice its effects, as she sees him use the device for the second time on the stairs late at night. Realizing it can't be good for him, Aurora takes it and tries to hide it. She herself also hides from Jesus at first, but when he tells her that, while simply taking the device won't do anything, he appreciates her concern for him and wants to be with her, she comes out and shows him that she hid it in her teddy bear's stuffing. Later, in the midst of being bored to tears at the New Year's Eve party, Aurora becomes more concerned about what's happening to Jesus when she sees how much more amorous he is towards Mercedes. Significantly, following Jesus' supposed death and funeral, Aurora is the one who's there for her grandfather when he manages to escape being cremated. She allows him back into the house, fixes a bed for him up in the storage area on the building's roof, and shields him from the sunlight by closing him up in an empty toy-box. During the climax, when Jesus returns to the De La Guardia factory to confront Dieter, he finds Aurora has come as well, in spite of his warning not to, and has brought the Cronos Device with her. He asks her if she's aware of how dangerous this is and that they could kill her, to which she smiles and nods, much to his exasperation. He soon finds himself glad that she did come, as she's the one who finds the manuscript about the device, and when Dieter nearly kills him, she whacks him unconscious with his own cane. And after both Jesus and Angel fall through a glass ceiling, Aurora revives Jesus with the device. At some point, she badly cuts her hand, and he's about to feed on her blood, when she speaks, calling him, "Grandfather." This brings him to his senses and he proceeds to smash the Cronos Device, destroying it. Aurora remains by his side to the last, lying atop him as he lies in his bed at home, waiting to see if he's truly free from its effects when the sun comes up.

Also in del Toro's notes, he says that Jesus' wife, Mercedes (Margarita Isabel), who's noticeably younger than he is, is rather bitter about how her life with him hasn't amounted to what she'd hoped and that she sees the birth of Aurora as a disappointment, as she wanted a boy. Also, her own parents are said to have died in the accident that killed Aurora's. Since she doesn't have nearly as much screentime as Jesus and Aurora, we don't get much into that, although it is clear from her first couple of scenes, where she sternly tells Aurora to sit up straight at the breakfast table, and the way she looks at Jesus when he shows up at her dance class with a bloody bandaged hand and blood on his vest, that she's not the warmest or most caring person. However, her iciness does start to melt, first when she sees the new vigor Jesus has acquired, looking much younger and dapper without his mustache, and at the New Year's Eve party, where she realizes he's regained his romantic, amorous ways. Sadly for her, Jesus seemingly dies after Angel pushes him off a cliff in a car and she orders his body cremated after the visitation. Following his escape, he calls his house and Mercedes picks up the phone. After a long pause, Jesus says her name, but she hangs up, thinking it a prank call. Before the climax, he tries to come up with a good enough note explaining what's happened to him and how he hopes she will accept him, regardless of how he looks. Having been given this note by Aurora, Mercedes, at the end of the movie, does, indeed, come to see him as he lies in bed, waiting for the sun to come up.

A common motif in del Toro's films is that the monsters and ghosts are almost never the true villains; at worst, they kill because it's inherent within them, they're genetic creations that have evolved far beyond their original function, like the Judas breed cockroaches in Mimic, or are pawns for a much bigger evil, like how the kaiju in Pacific Rim are actually enormous bioweapons created and controlled by beings from an alternate dimension. More often than not, humans turn out to be the true monsters, and that's certainly the case with Cronos, where the two villains are Dieter de la Guardia and his nephew, Angel. Dieter (Claudio Brook) has a simple reason for being interested in the Cronos Device, which he's been gathering information on for the past forty years: he's dying of cancer and wants to use it to cure himself and live longer, possibly forever. Given what it does for Jesus, it would likely cure Dieter of his sickness, which has progressed to the point where he has to live in an antiseptic chamber at his factory and has had many of his organs removed, which he keeps in jars in. There's also a suggestion that he's a descendant of either Uberto Fulcanelli or the viceroy who employed him, as he calls the device "rightfully mine" in one scene. Since Dieter obviously can't go out and search for it himself, he repeatedly sends out Angel, who's heir to his business and fortune, to follow up on any possible leads. He's horribly abusive to him, berating and beating on him whenever he fails, and he pushes him to the limit to find it, telling him, "I'm not going to rest until I have what is rightfully mine. And neither are you." Early on, he meets Jesus, telling him of the Cronos Device's past and showing him Fulcanelli's notes, only to then realize he's used it himself. At first shocked, he decides to use it to his advantage, telling Jesus as he leaves, "You may continue the game. After all, you have the toy. But I'm keeping the instructions." Though he begins sending Angel after Jesus himself, eventually Jesus returns to the factory, wanting to look through the notes to see if there's a way to cure himself of his condition. Having anticipated this, Dieter has torn out those pages and actually eaten them. He offers Jesus a "way out" in exchange for the device and Jesus, despite his well-founded distrust, is convinced to give it to him. Dieter's way out for him is to stab him repeatedly, but before he can finish Jesus off, Aurora knocks him unconscious with his own cane, after which Jesus feeds on his blood. However, this doesn't kill Dieter.

What does kill Dieter is when Angel, tired of his abuse and wanting his inheritance, comes in and crushes his throat with his foot. In his first of many roles for del Toro, Ron Perlman gives the film its most colorful performance. A thuggish brute, Angel couldn't care less about the Cronos Device or what Dieter wants with it; he just wishes his abusive, domineering uncle would stop badgering him to get it for him and would croak already so he could inherit all that he has. Despite how polite he is towards Jesus when he first goes to his antique store to buy the archangel statue, and his playfulness towards Aurora, Angel really seems to detest being stuck in Mexico (del Toro and Perlman decided early on that his poor pronunciation of the Spanish language was meant as a sign of his disdain), and he grows more and more angry and resentful when Dieter continually sends him after Jesus for the device. When his attempt to beat it out of him results in Jesus losing consciousness, Angel tries to compensate and rid himself of this annoyance by putting Jesus in his car and pushing it over a cliff. He later claims it happened by accident, but this only enrages Dieter, who knows Jesus isn't dead, as his heart wasn't pierced. He sends Angel to search Jesus' body during the visitation, but when he's apparently cremated before he can search him, Angel, who didn't believe in the device's immortality-giving powers, is more than happy to just leave it at that. Angel has an interesting quirk of wanting to have plastic surgery on his nose, asking Jesus his opinion on various noses when he first meets him, and he's seen listening to a CD about plastic surgery at one point... right before his uncle smashes him in the face with his cane for not making sure that Jesus was dead. It's also funny to see how utterly angry he gets when his uncle calls for him. At one point, he yells, "Fuck!", when he hears the buzzer, only to calmly say, "Yes, uncle?", on the walkie-talkie. Dieter then demands he come up immediately and Angel snarls, "Stupid motherfucking, cocksucking, son of a bitch, asshole pendejo," before telling him, "Be right there." And when Dieter buzzes him again during the climax, Angel growls, "What the fuck is it now, you dried up old prune?" By the time he gets up there, he finds Dieter lying on the floor in a pool of blood, the sight of which makes Angel ecstatic, as he starts doing a victory dance and declaring everything his. Dieter then reaches for him and asks for help, but Angel isn't having it and finishes him off, telling him, "You kept me waiting long enough." But even though he now has what he wanted, Angel getting smashed in the nose again, this time by Jesus, prompts him to chase after him, leading to his death when the two of them fall off the factory's roof and through a glass ceiling below.

In doing research, I was surprised to learn that, in 2010, there was another Mexican horror film, We Are What We Are, that's something of a sequel to Cronos, although the only connection between them is the character of Tito (Daniel Gimenez Cacho), a coroner who works on Jesus' body after his apparent death. He does a good job of making him look good, considering the condition he was in after the crash, and the funeral director (Juan Carlos Colombo) compliments him heartily, calling it his very best work. Tito thinks so too, saying it takes an artistic talent... which is why he's annoyed when the director tells him that Jesus is to be cremated, exclaiming, "You should've told me before I fixed the fucker, God rest his soul! Nobody respects my work here." He puts the suit onto Jesus as the director tells him that Mercedes changed her mind, as there was no plot for him; Tito grumbles, "The bastards think they'll live forever." Later, as he prepares to cremate Jesus, Tito notices lipstick smudges on the face and wipes them off, saying, "We won't send you to heaven like this. Naked, with lipstick smudges all over. They'll think you went whoring." He has trouble firing the oven up, giving Jesus the chance to escape, and when the director brings Angel down under the pretense of wanting to have another look at the body, Tito, who's already put the coffin in and switched the oven on, comments, "Of course. Medium or well done?"

Tito is one of the film's many, surprisingly, humorous aspects, although much of the humor is very dark. For instance, when Jesus, after first triggering the Cronos Device accidentally, shows up at Mercedes' dance lesson with a bandaged hand and blood on his vest, it's funny how she and the man she's dancing with react to the sight, while he stands there and sheepishly says, "Hello," to everyone. There's also some humor in how, before he uses it a second time, he very quickly says the Lord's Prayer, as if both bracing himself for the

pain and asking for divine forgiveness, knowing this can't be right. As gross and pathetic it is to see him so desperate for a "fix" of blood that he's collecting it on the sink and then licking it up on the restroom floor, it is kind of funny, too, especially when you imagine someone other than Angel walking in on him. And let's not overlook how, when he escapes the morgue, he puts his suit on backwards and it stays that way for the rest of the film. Most of the rest of the humor comes from Angel, thanks to Ron Perlman's over-the-top

performance and the shtick he's given. While you feel bad for the abuse he receives at the hands of his uncle, it is really funny to hear him profanely yell and grumble about him whenever Dieter isn't within earshot, as well as how small and pathetic his living quarters are. Also, he finds the idea of Dieter wanting to live longer, despite how his life has been reduced to less than nothing, so funny that he stops beating on Jesus for a moment and leans back back on him, laughing. Despite his skepticism

about the Cronos Device being able to grant eternal life, when he goes to Jesus' visitation, he curiously holds his nose closed for a while to see if he can get a reaction. And let's also not forget how utterly ecstatic he is when it seems like Dieter has finally died, to the point where he dances around next to him. Finally, there's his desire for a nose job, which he wants so badly that he asks others how different noses would look on him, spends all of his free time looking into it (including sitting around in his underwear while listening to instructional tapes), and is utterly enraged when it gets smashed in for the second time.

Fairy tales have always fascinated Guillermo del Toro, specifically in their original purest, darkest, most complex iterations, and Cronos is as much, if not more, a modern day Grimms' fairy tale as it is a horror film. The opening, where a narrator gives us the backstory of the alchemist, his creation of the Cronos Device, and his own eventual fate, is of the, "Once upon a time," aesthetic, and alchemy being a key factor in the story lets us know immediately that we're into fantasy here. The same goes for the device's very mechanics and inner-workings, which

we get no insight into apart from there being some kind of insect within its gears that Dieter describes as a "living filter," taking the user's blood and then injecting them with a type of liquid that gives them everlasting life. We're also told that use of the device must be done under very strict rules, but other than the need to feed on blood, we never learn what they are exactly. (For del Toro, if you're going to ask questions of a fairy tale, you might as well not even bother.) Going back to insects, they're given mystical qualities, with Dieter

suggesting that they're God's favorite creatures, adding, "Christ walked on water, just like a mosquito. The matter of the resurrection is related to ants, to spiders. They can remain inside a rock for hundreds of years until someone comes along and frees them." And then, of course, there are the insect-like qualities of the creature Jesus finds himself becoming. Speaking of which, his own full name, "Jesus Gris," is likely not a coincidence in this conext. Finally, the relationship between him and Aurora is a definite Beauty and the Beast one, as she continues to love and accept him, despite how ghastly his appearance becomes during the third act, something that Mercedes comes around to as well.

In that Masters of Horror documentary, del Toro said that the main theme of the film is about being alive rather than being immortal, and it does indeed deal with the notion of cherishing life during the time you have, while also realizing that life is about pain, sickness, and, eventually death. In a way, something Fred Gwynne said about Pet Sematary can also be applied to this film, which is how trying to unnaturally prolong life is nothing but detrimental to you and your loved ones. It's best summed up what Angel says when Jesus tells

him why his uncle wants the Cronos Device: "That fucker does nothing but shit and piss all day, and he wants to live longer?" While the device, again, would probably cure Dieter of his illness, when you see what happens to Jesus the further down the line he gets, and the anguish his apparent death has caused his family, you can understand why he wants to reverse the effects and be done with the whole thing. As I hinted at earlier, there are also themes of addiction here, given how dependent

on the device Jesus becomes at one point looking at it and saying, "You're very good for me." Fittingly, this is right before he first notices its adverse effects, which include him developing such a desperate hankering for blood that he follows a guy with a bleeding nose into a restroom and laps some blood off the floor. And finally, the movie is about family, about the bond between Aurora and her grandfather (which is the impetus for him to destroy the device), his hoping his wife won't reject him when she sees him, and the three of them coming together at the end to see what will happen now that it has been destroyed.

In addition to its interesting characters and rich story and mythology, the film is also very beautiful to look at, wonderfully shot by del Toro's cinematographer, Guillermo Navarro. Its color palette is very, very rich, often with lots of oranges, yellows, reds, and golds for scenes set during the daytime, particularly at sunrise. The daytime scenes inside the small storage shed atop the building look especially good, what with the addition of the sunlight streaming through the window and the gaps in the ceiling creating a

spotted pattern in it. Even horrific or disgusting images, like that of the man hanging upside, drained of his blood in the alchemist's home, or a close-up of a bronze, archangel statue that's infested with cockroaches, come off looking very beautiful in these types of scenes. Nighttime scenes, on the other hand, such as when Jesus first feels his taste for blood and the melancholic cold, rainy night where he escapes from being cremated, contain a lot of deep blue in the lighting, no doubt meant to be that classic cinematic type of

moonlight. The only settings where there's little to no color are Dieter de la Guardia's antiseptic living chamber (in fact, his entire factory is pretty drab-looking) and the mortuary where Jesus is worked on and almost cremated. As for the actual cinematography, while it's not extremely showy or fancy, it does have some nice flourishes, such as shots floating above and looking straight down at someone or something, wide camera angles that show off the size and scope of some of the sets, as 

well as the skyline of the city in the early morning hours, big, full-on close-ups, sometimes of something you don't really want to see (like the Cronos Device piercing into Jesus' flesh or him pulling a shard of glass out of his bare foot), and some long tracking shots, like during the prologue, where the camera goes up the stairs of the alchemist's home to reveal the horrors found up there. And in a really inspired touch, del Toro often lets us see inside the device, getting close, seemingly full-sized shots of the clockwork mechanisms, the larva-like insect, and a device that fills up with the user's blood as part of the filtration process Dieter hints at.

Wherever in Mexico this film is set, the establishing shots of this city reveal it to be very cluttered, overcrowded, and rather enclosed. The story proper begins around Christmastime, so there are decorations hanging above the streets in the lower end parts of town, but the place still has a real nastiness to it; when Jesus escapes the mortuary and is wandering the streets on a cold and rainy night, you could mistake him for a typical homeless bum. But while the town streets are nasty, the building where Jesus and his family live

is quite nice, with their actual apartment not being the most luxurious home but still very nice and comfortable, with what looks a fairly big bedroom for Jesus and Mercedes. The most memorable room in the place, however, is that storage area up on the roof, which is filled with all sorts of furniture, tools, and toy-chest full of Aurora's old playthings, which later becomes a makeshift coffin for Jesus. The place is also memorable for a spot where Aurora, initially frightened of her grandfather, hides behind a small curtain, as well as

for that lighting pattern. While we only see Jesus' antique store for a little bit at the beginning, after which it's ransacked by Angel, it's another lovely setting, full of all sorts of interesting stuff like statues, wood carvings, and antique clocks. It also comes off as rather large and even posh, with the many chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and the nice desk Jesus has to work at. And I like the addition of the hopscotch squares drawn in chalk on the floor, an early sign of how Jesus is young at heart, even before he uses the Cronos Device. We

We see the ballroom where Mercedes gives her dance classes in just one scene but I mention it regardless because of how lovely the color of it is, with rich browns and oranges. The New Year's Eve party Jesus and his family attend takes place at some fancy establishment with a large ballroom and a men's room that looks so nice, with the marble decor, that it wouldn't be surprising to me if you could actually eat off the floor. It's a stark contrast to where Jesus finds himself afterward:

first beaten up by Angel in a spot near the edge of a cliff, ending up at the bottom of the cliff when Angel pushes the car down there with him in it, and then at the undertaker's. Needless to say, the latter is anything but appealing to look at. Not only does the room where Tito prepares the bodies look rather nasty, with missing wall tiles, cracked spots, and staining, but when the cremation oven doesn't work at first, he walks through a room that has pornography and weird drawings on the wall, as

well as a pair of bull horns and shelves containing chemicals and some sort of stuffed animal (taxidermy, that is) to reach the door leading down into the basement. Said basement is only seen in one shot but you can tell it's quite grimy and has cobwebs.

The most memorable setting in the entire film, though, has to the De La Guardia Enterprises headquarters, which is both a factory and residence for Dieter and Angel. While Angel is stuck downstairs in a small space for himself, his uncle lives up in an enormous, antiseptic chamber that requires you to remove your shoes for special slippers and put on a face-mask before entering. A cold and clinical room, where the colors are entirely white and gray, the actual living space is around the bend of a corridor beyond the door

consisting of a bed enshrouded in lace curtains, audio equipment that plays classical music for him, and all sorts of monitoring devices to keep his condition in check. It also has drawers and cabinets full of all his research on the Cronos Device, a fish-tank, and, most disturbingly, a glass case with jars containing all of the organs he's had to have removed (a motif Guillermo del Toro would repeat in some of his later films, like Blade II). The hallway leading to his living area also serves as a visual representation of his obsession with the device, as it has all of the archangel statues he's bought while in search of it hanging from chains and enshrouded in protective plastic.

The Cronos Device itself was, along with the extensive makeup and blood effects, created by del Toro's Necropia effects studio, and it's a very well-designed and memorable creation. Initially, it looks like a golden egg, with various sculpts and patterns on its exterior, as well as a thin, diamond-shaped section on top that points straight up, but when you wind up the dial on its front, insect-like legs spring up from its bottom, giving it a shape like a scarab beetle. The legs then grip tightly onto the user's flesh, piercing into it, and the device deploys an

arched, praying mantis-like spike from its rear end that sticks into the skin and injects the user with the solution that grants immortality. And as I mentioned earlier, we do get to see inside the device, giving us a bit more of an idea of how it works. Unfortunately, all of the actual Cronos props were stolen after filming wrapped, so del Toro has to be satisfied with replicas for his own personal collection.

In her essay on the film, Beautiful Dark Things, featured in the book that comes with "La Trilogia," Maitland McDonagh describes how dark and brutal true fairy tales often are, adding, "Good may prevail, but there will be blood." That certainly sums up Cronos as, while not an absolute gorefest, there is plenty of the red stuff here. Right at the beginning, you see the centuries-old alchemist with a piece of debris piercing into his chest and then, basins, bowls, and cups collecting blood from the body hanging upside down in his manor. Jesus' first

encounter with the Cronos Device is pretty nasty as well, as he rips it off his hand to reveal a very ugly, bloody wound on his palm. Even if no blood comes out, the close-ups of the device's spike piercing into his flesh does make you wince, and the sight of the blood on the sink and the restroom floor from the one guy's bleeding nose is also pretty gross. Poor Angel's insecurity about his nose gets worse when he gets smashed in the face, not once but twice, leaving a bloody gash on it, as well as a broken nose. Needless to say, Jesus looks pretty

bad after Angel pushes him off the cliff in the car, although Tito does a good job of covering up the scars. Speaking of painful, after Jesus escapes the morgue, there's a gruesome closeup of him pulling a shard of glass out of the bottom of his foot, which he then uses to remove some stitching that Tito sewed into his upper jaw's gums (the removal isn't too bad, but you do get another wince-inducing close-up of Tito actually doing it beforehand). The bloodiest moment in the film, though, comes when

after Aurora knocks Dieter unconscious, Jesus, seeing the blood running out of the back of his head, bends down, bites into his neck, and feeds on him. For the rest of climax, his face is covered in blood, and there's more spilled when he and Angel fall through the glass ceiling and when Jesus' bloodlust is momentarily triggered when he sees Aurora's bleeding hand.

Equally as impressive as the blood effects is the makeup used to show Jesus' gradual deterioration and complete rebirth over the course of the movie. The first adverse signs of the changes he's going through are when he's in the bathroom right before the New Year's Eve party and notices something about his left eye, as well as pulls a sticky substance out of one of the wounds on his chest created by the Cronos Device. Like I said, Tito does a good job of covering up the ugly injuries he receives from the car crash but, after he escapes

the morgue, he truly begins to fall apart. He may have seemed youthful when he first used the device but now, he's starting to look downright ancient, with his gray hair become ragged and stringy, and his flesh looking like dried leather, with pieces off it falling off. When he confronts Dieter during the climax, Dieter shows him what's happening by ripping off chunks of skin from his face, and Jesus, looking at his reflection, sees the white, marble-like skin growing underneath it. Following his

scuffle with Angel and Aurora's reviving him, he awakens to find big shards of glass sticking in his torso. He then pushes his hand up under his flesh and peels it off, revealing even more of the new, white layer growing beneath. By the end of the movie, after he's destroyed the device, we see he's removed all of his old flesh and is looking like the centuries-old alchemist as he lies in bed back at his house (it's been commented that he looks a lot like how Gary Oldman did in the elderly Dracula makeup in Bram Stoker's Dracula, which was released the previous year, but, while it does, I doubt that was an inspiration, as both films were in production around the same time).

If the film has a weakness, it's the music by Javier Alvarez, who's a pretty well-known musician in Mexico (and who has a cameo as the man whose nose is bleeding at the New Year's Eve party), although he hasn't done much film work. In my opinion, the score he came up with, which very rarely leans into horror but, rather, goes for either a very quirky, playful vibe or a sad one, isn't all that memorable. I can vaguely remember bits of it, like the traditional Mexican piece that plays during the opening credits, some freakish electronic sounds for moments like the cockroaches coming out of the statue or the Cronos Device first gripping onto Jesus' hand, and a xylophone-like bit that plays when Jesus attempts to call home and is then let in by Aurora (and also plays on the Criterion Collection menu), but much of the rest of it, including the dramatic and poignant parts, go in one ear and out the other. Truth be told, I find actual songs and such that are played within the film, like the tango music for Mercedes' dance lesson, the romantic song heard playing in the far background during the scene in the restroom, and the weird music Tito listens to while doing his work, especially this one where you hear someone going, "Aye! Aye!," like the, "Mine! Mine!", seagulls from Finding Nemo, to be far more memorable than the actual score.

But for me, the score is Cronos' only stumbling block, as everything else is just superb. The characters and performances are excellent, with special mention going to Federico Luppi and Ron Perlman, the film is beautifully-shot, with a number of memorable settings and locations, the props, makeup, and gore effects are well done for such a low budget, it has a very unique take on the idea and lore of vampires, and Guillermo del Toro's unique direction and storytelling make it as much a modern day, dark, and possibly tragic fairy tale, with a very poignant, sweet relationship at its core, as a horror film. There's nothing else I can say other than implore you to go and treat yourself to this flick if you haven't already seen it.