Review of Cronos (1993) by Daniel M — 18 Apr 2011

Now vampires are a movie monster almost as old as the medium itself. Nosferatu was a masterpiece of silent filmmaking and German expressionism, and Dracula helped usher in a new era propelled by the advent of sound.

For years however, there was little to be seen that was either creative or scary about the once feared creatures of the night. The main fault in this was that they had, from Lugosi onward, become more and more romanticized as the dark and sexy type that ravished you while you slept.

Near Dark helped shed that image, and Guillermo Del Toro's stylish Gothic fable goes one step further. Del Toro, like Bigelow, knows that these are victims of addiction, parasites even, fighting for their survival.

They are biological, and therefore they're also beings of decay. Cronos is a tragic tale, romanticized not in a conventional sense, but in the way it shows beauty and humanity in the monsters it creates.