Guillermo Del Toro’s first feature is a mini-masterpiece that revitalized the Mexican fantastic film. Inventing his own macabre horror concept, Del Toro envisions a bizarre fountain of youth with an unforeseen side effect that’s akin to vampirism without supernatural powers. Federico Luppi, Ron Perlman and Claudio Brook star in a beautifully designed and directed scare show. Extra treats include a brilliant del Toro short film, and a tour of his eye-opening ‘Bleak House.’

Cronos
4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 551
1993 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 93 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date February 25, 2025 / 49.95
Starring: Federico Luppi, Ron Perlman, Claudio Brook, Margarita Isabel, Tamara Shanath.
Cinematography: Guillermo Navarro
Production Designer: Tolita Figueroa
Art Director: Brigitte Broch
Film Editor: Raúl Dávalos
Costume Design: Genoveva Petitpierre
Original Music: Javier Álvarez
Produced by Arthur H. Gorson, Bertha Navarro
Written and Directed by Guillermo del Toro

The king of all things fantastic in Hollywood is at present none other than writer-producer-director Guillermo Del Toro. His abiding interest (read: fanaticism) about all things horror surpasses that of Forrest J. Ackerman, at least at the academic level. Hollywood success has allowed Del Toro to create his own mini-museum, a ‘cabinet’ of precious literary editions, fanta-film collectables, props and artworks. Del Toro always impresses in interviews. His base of knowledge and experience is daunting, and he speaks with friendly authority. He’s the most articulate and thoughtful ‘monster fan’ imaginable.

Often grouped together with his countryman Alfonso Cuarón, whose first film successes were also produced in Mexico. Del Toro is a more prolific writer-producer than a director, but his directing filmography has plenty of highlights. His crowning achievement to date is 2017’s  The Shape of Water, which was nominated for 13 Academy Awards and won 4. That’s not bad for a lowly monster movie; Criterion brought it out on 4K not long ago.

The Shape of Water has a lot in common with Del Toro’s first feature film  Cronos, from 1993. Each resurrects a sub-genre of the fantastic, creating its own background mythology. This mythmaking feat recalls the classic-era screenwriter Curt Siodmak, who condensed superstitions about shape-shifing phantoms into a very popular and still-prevailing  werewolf mythology.

Ever since 1998’s reboot of The Mummy, Hollywood has been trying to repackage horror as a franchise, like Harry Potter or the Marvel universe of superheroes. But nobody knows what upscale horror should be any more. There’s still a big market for all-torture, all-Sadism extravaganzas, but old-fashioned thrills are in short supply. Universal’s The Mummy became an adventure epic, that might have been more accurately titled “Indiana Jones and the Indestructible Pixel Guy You Can See Through.”  A new take on Curt Siodmak’s wolf man mythos has been attempted every few years, but nobody so far has equalled the last truly creative lycanthrope thriller, Joe Dante’s  The Howling … from 45 years ago.

Cronos is now considered the first part of a three-film Guillermo Del Toro trilogy, with two films set in Spain and given a thematic background of la guerra civil española. But Cronos stands alone, a horror fable without an immediate political connection. It is an exemplary mini-classic that channels aspects of the old Universal formulas into a modern Mexican setting, and never seems old-fashioned.

In stories like  The Man in Half-Moon Street, foolish men go to extremes in search of immortality, and eventually pay a terrible price for their transgressions. Guillermo del Toro’s creepshow is a variant on this formula. It has aspects of the flawed but interesting  The Asphyx but relies for most of its visual motifs on vintage Universal thrillers like  The Mad Ghoul. The hero of Cronos is more of a victim than a monster. When he is compelled to fall to his hands and knees to lap up blood from the floor of a public restroom, he evokes Kharis from  The Mummy’s Hand, prostrating himself to recover spilled Tana Leaf fluid.

But Cronos also departs from conventions both old and new. There are no youthful lovers or sexually precocious teens in the story. The hero is an antiques dealer more than a few years into middle age. He’s played with authority and sensitivity by the Argentinian actor Federico Luppi, of  Men With Guns and  The Stone Raft as well as other films by del Toro.

Antiques merchant Jesús Gris (Luppi) finds a beautifully-crafted scarab-like metallic artifact hidden in the base of a statue. Soon thereafter, a belligerent customer named Ángel de la Guardia (Ron Perlman) arrives and purchases the statue for more than it is worth. Ángel’s sickly uncle Dieter de la Guardia (Claudio Brook) convalesces in an elaborate upstairs loft in his large factory. He has been collecting matching statues in the hope of finding the one with the jeweled scarab. Realizing that the artifact must have a special value, Jesús tries to determine its function. He is shocked when the scarab’s mechanical claws grab his hand. Some kind of needle pierces his skin. Jesús is even more surprised when the device revitalizes his metabolism and rejuvenates his appearance.

Jesús refuses to cooperate with Dieter’s demands that he relinquish the artifact, and must discover its full story on his own. The dying Dieter wants the scarab because it makes the bearer immortal — but it also turns any user into a functioning vampire, who must drink blood to survive. Jesús finds it impossible to hide his strange new condition from his wife and adorable granddaughter (Margarita Isabel & Tamara Shanath). When Ángel ‘kills’ him, Jesús doesn’t die. He instead becomes a disfigured ghoul. His flesh begins to fall away, revealing a new layer of white skin.

The art direction in Cronos is as ornate and complex as Jesús’ colorful antiques. Writer-director del Toro creates a fascinating, strangely credible horror icon in the fancy metallic scarab. Huge macro close-ups show its interior gears turning — and reveal some kind of organic, uncanny grub-thing living in its interior. The antique memorabilia in Jesús’ shop contrasts strongly with Dieter de la Guardia’s antiseptic apartment, a clinical waiting room for the terminal tyrant. For the record, actor Claudio Brook’s amazing career took in films by many directors: Robert Parrish, Louis Malle, Joseph Losey, Juan López Moctezuma, Arturo Ripstein, John Glen. He played his several films by Luis Buñuel, and starred in the director’s  Simon of the Desert.

Del Toro has invented his own horror legend, from whole cloth as it were. An elaborate prologue reveals that the maker of the Cronos scarab was a 16th century alchemist, who lived until 1937 when he was crushed by the collapse of a building. The ancient man had pearly white skin, described as the ‘color of marble in the moonlight.’ The authorities covered up the fact that an exsanguinated corpse was also found in the wreckage of the fallen building.

Jesús is a wholly reluctant ‘monster.’ Cronos puts him through the classic paces of a tragic victim, forcing him to creep about to hide his secret and its attendant appetites. Following a tradition that stretches from Florey’s  Murders in the Rue Morgue to Cronenberg’s The Fly, Jesús final conflict with Ángel takes place on a rooftop high over the city. The vampiric theme edges into zombie territory when Jesús realizes that, so long as he follows the ‘rules’ of the Cronos scarab, he’ll continue living. This holds true even if his body is mangled, as was the case with one unfortunate victim in the classic W.W. Jacobs story  The Monkey’s Paw.  As in Jorge Grau’s  No profanar el sueño de los muertos, a mortician tacks Jesús’s face back together with staples, leaving him with a rotting Frankenstein-like appearance. Formerly a rather handsome man, Jesús can’t possibly return to his wife now. And how can he face his loving granddaughter, Aurora?

Unpretentious, suspenseful, and visually fascinating, Cronos is a wholly original genre gem.

The Criterion Collection’s 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray gives del Toro’s Cronos a new 4K digital restoration. The set offers one 4K UHD disc and one Blu-ray with the film and the special features.

Seen in 4K, the fine art direction and makeup effects in Cronos really stand out. Guillermos Navarro’s rich, expressive cinematography could show the average Hollywood picture of ’93 a few tricks. In 4K, the dark corners of Jesús Gris’s antique store seems even more packed with arcane items. Del Toro often keeps the ‘monster-fied’ Gris in shadow, but now those shadows yield more information and detail.

The bounty of HD extras are the same as in earlier releases, as assembled by Criterion producer Curtis Tsui: an original Spanish-language introduction, two commentaries, and key interviews. Del Toro’s short horror film Geometria is a gem, wickedly clever and drop-dead funny.

Equally arresting is Welcome to Bleak House, a lengthy tour of director del Toro’s amazing home ‘haunt,’ which serves as a storehouse and display venue for his collection of fantastic art and movie memorabilia. It’s an ultra-classy Ackermansion where props from his movies mingle with rarities purchased in auctions or donated by other directors. The Cronos scarab sits comfortably on a tabletop, while other areas are set aside to provide an inspiring work environment for del Toro’s artists and collaborators. After decades of supposed ‘genre auteurs’ that work in fantasy purely for commercial reasons, it’s refreshing to see a talent who embraces the fantastic in such a wholehearted fashion.

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Cronos
4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray rates:
Movie: Excellent
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements:
Original Spanish-language voice-over introduction
Audio commentary with Guillermeo del Toro
Audio commentary with producers Arthur H. Gorso, Bertha Navarro and coproducer Alejandro Springall
Geometria, an unreleased 1987 short horror film by del Toro, finished in 2010, alongside an interview with the director
Welcome to Bleak House a tour by del Toro of his home office and personal collections
Interviews with del Toro, cinematographer Guillermo Navarro, and actors Ron Perlman and Federico Luppi
Stills gallery captioned by del Toro
Trailer
Folding insert with an essay by Maitland McDonagh and excerpts from del Toro’s notes.
Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? YES; Subtitles: English (feature only)
Packaging: One 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray in Keep case
Reviewed: February 14, 2025
(7279cron)

Visit CineSavant’s Main Column Page
Glenn Erickson answers most reader mail: cinesavant@gmail.com

Text © Copyright 2025 Glenn Erickson