Review of Cronos (1993) by Alec B — 29 Oct 2007

Cronos is a low budget Mexican film by God like genius Guillermo del Toro (Devil's Backbone, Hellboy, Pan's Labyrinth) made for the price of about 2 million dollars. The story is a nice little take on the vampire story with eternal life coming from a small scarab like mechanical toy with a living insect within. A nice old antique shop owner comes across this trinket and accidently sets it off (the scarab's legs spring out and lock into the flesh of his palm whilst a pronged tail pierces the skin and draws blood, exchanging it for life extending powers). However a diseased American gangster and his nephew (Ron Perlman) relentlessly pursue the device, knowing the truth behind it.

Ok let's get this out of the way straight away: it's very low budget and I think probably made for DVD (the film is in a 4:3 screen ratio) and certainly not as grand or special as some of del Toro's other works. Whilst I had no worries screaming from the rooftops how good Pan's Labyrinth was (and am delighted so many of you went out and watched it without the language barrier being a problem) I think Cronos will please a much smaller audience. An extremely slowly paced film it has all the wonderful charm of his other Spanish films but, obviously due to its budget, lacks their grandiose.

What it does very well however is display the personalities of the characters with such warm detail that it's hard not to care for them. The old grandfather's character changes from loving to cold with an excellent subtlety whilst the wordless little grand daughter is a joy to behold as she follows her vampire granddad with utter loyalty and love. I'm really starting to take joy from Ron Perlman's performances of late and this one is no exeption (his acting is bloody awful though). I'm actually suprised to say I'm really looking forward to Hellboy 2 now which should hit our screens next summer.

3 "Skin like marble in the moonlight"s out of 5.