In a bid to cheat death, terminally ill millionaire De la Guardia (Claudio Brook) instructs his ruthless nephew Angel (Ron Perlman) to locate The Cronos, a mystical clockwork contraption with the power to bestow immortality on its user. Angel eventually locates the device in the possession of kindly antiques dealer Jesus (Federico Luppi), and resorts to murder to get his hands on the prize; however, having already activated the device, the old man doesn't stay dead for long. With a hunger for blood, an aversion to sunlight, and a rather manky complexion, Jesus breaks into the la Guardia home looking for answers to his bizarre condition.
Cronos, the debut movie from Guillermo del Toro, is listed on IMDb as a horror, but it would be much better described as a dark fairytale: although a form of vampirism is at the heart of his script, the writer/director's focus is on Jesus's gradually evolving relationship with his young granddaughter Aurora (Tamara Shanath) and the realisation of a surreal/Gothic fantasy aesthetic. While I don't particularly mind the movie's considered pacing—a slow-burn narrative does not faze me one bit—and the rich shadowy cinematography is often impressive, I do tend to struggle with the self-consciously quirky, quasi-art-house approach of the type favoured by film-makers such as Jeunet et Caro and Terry Gilliam, finding it all too affected and ostentatious for my taste.
Del Toro's style isn't anywhere near as excessive as those particular film-makers can be when they really put their minds to it, but it does result in just enough awkward moments, over-sentimentality and irritating calculated whimsicality to prevent it from being a wholly digestible affair (the dreadfully inappropriate score and the 'comical' mortician being perhaps the film's most notable weaknesses).
5.5/10, rounded up to 6 for IMDb.
Cronos, the debut movie from Guillermo del Toro, is listed on IMDb as a horror, but it would be much better described as a dark fairytale: although a form of vampirism is at the heart of his script, the writer/director's focus is on Jesus's gradually evolving relationship with his young granddaughter Aurora (Tamara Shanath) and the realisation of a surreal/Gothic fantasy aesthetic. While I don't particularly mind the movie's considered pacing—a slow-burn narrative does not faze me one bit—and the rich shadowy cinematography is often impressive, I do tend to struggle with the self-consciously quirky, quasi-art-house approach of the type favoured by film-makers such as Jeunet et Caro and Terry Gilliam, finding it all too affected and ostentatious for my taste.
Del Toro's style isn't anywhere near as excessive as those particular film-makers can be when they really put their minds to it, but it does result in just enough awkward moments, over-sentimentality and irritating calculated whimsicality to prevent it from being a wholly digestible affair (the dreadfully inappropriate score and the 'comical' mortician being perhaps the film's most notable weaknesses).
5.5/10, rounded up to 6 for IMDb.