Review: Cronos (1993)

Guillermo Del Toro's Cronos opens with the legend of an alchemist from the 14th century who invents small golden machine that is both dignified and horrifying: a small golden scarab that injects a substance that gives immortality into its user.

Then we discover that several centuries later, an earthquake in Mexico has shaken down the building that the alchemist was still alive in. The alchemist's body is found underneath a heaping pile of rubble with a stake having punctured his heart (how else) and the Cronos device hidden inside of a statue of an archangel which becomes purchased by an antique dealer named Jesus Gris (Frederico Luppi) who inevitably discovers the device and watches in terror as it attaches itself to him, only to discover later that it has made him immortal.

However in another location in the city, an industrialist (Claudio Brook) is slowly dying and somehow the journal of the alchemist has come into his possession and upon learning of the existence of the Cronos device, sends his American nephew (Ron Perlman) to go find the device.

This stuff is classic to horror films of canon and Guillermo Del Toro has presented his story (which he wrote and directed) with a very colorful realism. Also present is an undercurrent sadness and fatalism that runs in the film, from the relationship between the elderly antique dealer and his granddaughter Aurora (Tamara Shanath) who continues to love him unconditionally even after his undead body has had some unpleasant changes to it.


The strange thing about Cronos is that it's not really a film about story, it's more a film about the characters. In works of fiction it is often common that the characters that come into possession of immortality are often not worthy of it. This is due to the idea that your typical immortal is not someone who is young and wants nothing more than to help others, but instead is an old and bitter miser whose only desire is to live longer to see how fat his wallet gets. This adds to each of the character's possession of shame: there just seems something shameful in tales like this about not being willing to go when your time runs out.

This sentiment is made more piercing as the story takes its course since immortality is given to the antique dealer by chance and not by choice: the antique dealer is a kind elderly man, whereas the industrialist is a monster and his nephew a stooge. The real meat of the story consists of the interactions between the Jesus and his granddaughter even after things have taken a turn for the worse. The granddaughter's unconditional and unchanging love for her grandfather is nothing short of touching.

Any good horror film has a sense of humor, whether it is generated by the AWFUL subject matter or by the trivality of human life that it shows. What horror films from Latin countries seem to posses is an undercurrent of religion and faith, where each of the characters are fully convinced of the existence of hell and all have good reasons for not wanting to be sent there. If, as religion so kindly teaches us, the purpose of this world is only to prepare for the next, then what greater punishment could there be than being stranded on the near shore?