Cronos is the 1993 feature debut from Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro, who later went on to achieve worldwide acclaim with such films as Blade II, the Hellboy franchise and the exquisite Pan’s Labyrinth. 

Though perhaps not as widely known as some of his later works, all the director’s hallmarks (ie. obsessions) are present in spades in Cronos.  Ostensibly a vampire film, the movie features prominent religious imagery and the recurrent themes of insect life, mechanics, alchemy as well as a preoccupation with death and rebirth that would characterise almost without exception Del Toro’s later filmic output. 

Jesus Gris (Federico Luppi) is an elderly antique dealer in Mexico City, who comes into the possession of a hoary wooden archangel.  Finding it rotten and full of cockroaches, he pries open the statue’s base and discovers a mysterious gold contraption shaped like a scarab.  The viewer has already learned from the film’s prologue that the finely crafted clockwork bug was the invention of a 16^th century alchemist and holds the secret of immortality.  The scarab is lusted after by an terminally ill and thoroughly unscrupulous American businessman (Claudio Brook), who learnt of its existence from the alchemist’s journals and has spent the past 40 years in search of the elusive object, aided, at times reluctantly, by his hulking, ruthless nephew (Hellboy’s Ron Perlman).  Together Jesus and his young granddaughter Aurora must try and outwit the bloodthirsty pair, hopefully not becoming too bloodthirsty, or undead, themselves in the process. 

Cronos is a visually rich and expertly paced film, rife with all the transcendent imagery and attention to detail one would expect from the inimitable Mexican auteur.  As a potent allegory of American heavy-handedness in its dealings with its southern neighbour it works a treat, but it’s also a superb treatment of the vampire theme and one that breathes new life into the genre of the undead. 

Madman’s new Blu-ray edition features a flawless HD transfer (Del Toro’s signature 1:85:1 aspect ratio has never looked better) and is laden with excellent extras, including a Director’s Commentary, a predictably insightful hour-long interview in which Del Toro covers the filming process, his inspiration for the piece and almost anything you can think of, and plenty more.  It’s a must for Del Toro fans who haven’t already visited this early gem, and another faultless entry into the Madman canon of Director’s Suite classics.