# Cronos (1993)

### reviewed by
Pedro Sena

    FILM TITLE:               CRONOS
    DIRECTOR:               GUILLERMO DEL TORO
    COUNTRY:                MEXICO 1993
    CINEMATOGRAPHY: GUILLERMO NAVARRO
    MUSIC:                     JAVIER ALVAREZ
    CAST:                       Federico Luppi (Jesus Gris), Ron Perlman(Angel),
    Claudio Brook (Dela Guardia), Margarita Isabel (Mercedes), Tamara Shanath
     Young Girl)
    SUPER FEATURES:  Nice film, even with its short cummings.

             !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CRONOS, is a nice film, in the gothic vein of things. Were it not for the fact that the film really has an obvious lack of funds for its making, this might have looked better, than it does. And with as little as it appears to have had, it does bring forth a story that is nice, although the modernization of what might have better been a period piece, but appears to suffer due to some ill chosen locations.

It is the story of an elder man ( Jesus ) who has an antique store, and happens to be carrying some items that are historical, unbeknownst to him. And he finds out that one of the statuettes he has is actually a very old piece that contains a special piece of machinery that fits in a hand that injects a special fluid, that was created by some mysterious alchemist several hundred years ago. Jesus, finds that the fluid happens to stop the aging process. But also finds that it leads to the tendency to look for blood, and the person to become a vampire.

His battle, towards the end, is quite heroic, his name being an obvious attempt at making a connection, while another man ( Dela Guardia ) is craving the piece of machinery simply to keep his apparently large business empire going much longer.

There are no tricks, no fancy things, just a nicely photographed film with a very small budget, from the looks of things. Lights are dim, which creates an atmosphere that helps the film and the story but does not specially do anything else.

Federico Luppi does very well as the old man who is having a tremendous time with his discovery and gets better as he gets older, and has to fight his addiction. Unfortunately the film seems to take a downturn at the same time, although the story of good and evil comes forth and gets clarified.

Though not a film in the class of the moody Hammer material, this film is still nice, and actually reminds me of another Spanish film maker who did very well with a slight budget, and made Barbara Steele famous.

    3.5 GIBLOONS

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