Cronos (4K UHD Review)
- Review Date: Feb 28, 2025
- Format: 4K Ultra HD
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Director
Guillermo del ToroRelease Date(s)
1992 (February 25, 2025)Studio(s)
October Films (The Criterion Collection – Spine #551)- Film/Program Grade: B+
- Video Grade: B+
- Audio Grade: A
- Extras Grade: A+
Review
[Editor’s Note: The majority of this review, including the film review and extras, was written by Dennis Seuling. The rest, including the video portion, was written by Tim Salmons.]
Vampire films have always been a favorite of viewers who enjoy an excursion into macabre territory, from 1922’s Nosferatu to its current remake. Neither dead nor alive, the vampire lurks in an in-between world, driven by a thirst for human blood. Guillermo del Toro’s directorial debut, Cronos, never using the word “vampire,” mixes alchemy, an intriguing automaton, and an adoring child in a novel spin on vampire folklore.
Cronos begins with a prologue that sets the stage. A 14th-century alchemist creates a monstrous machine that allows him to live forever, provided that his heart remains intact. Centuries later, an earthquake kills the alchemist when falling debris pierces his heart. The device is lost for centuries afterward.
Jesús Gris (Federico Luppi, A Man of Principles) is an elderly Mexican antiques dealer whose orphaned young granddaughter Aurora (Tamara Shanath, On the Air) seldom leaves his side. Cleaning up after an intruder smashes items in his antiques shop, he and his granddaughter discover a golden mechanical beetle. When Jesús examines the ornament, it sprouts claws that bloody his hand and a long stinger that injects him with some kind of fluid.
Jesús discovers that the device grants him eternal life, but with that longevity comes a constant need for human blood. The upside: he gradually takes on a more youthful and energetic appearance.
Unbeknownst to Jesús, the mysterious golden beetle is the Cronos device. Wealthy businessman Dieter De la Guardia (Claudio Brook, Miroslava), however, fearing his own imminent death, has been hunting for it. Learning that Gris has found the Cronos, he orders his nephew Angel (Ron Perlman, Killer by Nature) to steal it. Angel is resentful of his demanding uncle but obeys his every command. After all, he’s his uncle’s sole heir and stands to inherit a fortune when the old man dies.
From this point, Jesús degenerates as his blood cravings increase. Yet although his appearance becomes monstrous, Jesús retains his humanity. He never kills for blood; he only partakes of previously spilled blood. Meanwhile, Angel becomes ever more violent as he seeks to satisfy his uncle’s demand.
When we might expect the film to go down a familiar path, del Toro surprises us by shaking up established vampire lore to provide an entirely new approach. In appearance, Jesús is a traditional movie monster, but his craving for human blood never drives him to murder. Even as grandfather gives way to monster, Aurora stays by his side, her love unshaken. A solemn and silent child, she takes the supernatural happenings in stride and becomes a sort of diminutive Renfield to Jesús’ vampire.
Del Toro has always been fascinated with strange, otherworldly and bizarre objects, and that fascination is forefront in Cronos. The device gets plenty of screen time and is practically a character in itself. The special effects in the film are all done mechanically. No CGI or post-production enhancements were employed. The film isn’t as gory as most vampire pictures. Del Toro’s screenplay draws us in through a strong central character.
Luppi is right at home as the kindly Grandpa. He obviously loves his granddaughter, as shown by his pleasure in having her at his shop. Luppi has a vulnerable quality that works well for both versions of Jesús. The vampire make-up never obscures his face to the degree that we can’t read his expressions, which communicate beautifully. He’s resigned to his fate, even as he suffers Angel’s brutality.
Perlman is well cast as a muscle-bound thug, but he plays Angel so broadly that his portrayal crosses into caricature and undermines the film’s tone. Perhaps del Toro wanted the character to provide some lighter moments, but Perlman goes too far in that direction.
Cronos is a horror film but there aren’t many scary moments. Some of the special effects are pretty gruesome, but the picture lacks a consistent, pervasive atmosphere. Working with a limited budget, del Toro does an exceptional job for his first feature, but there are missed opportunities where he could easily have built suspense. The score, by Javier Alvarez, does little to help create a mood of foreboding or complement Guillermo Navarro’s lush photography. Del Toro would visit occult and off-center subject matter later in his career in such films as The Devil’s Backbone, Pan’s Labyrinth, and The Shape of Water.
Cronos was shot by director of photography Guillermo Navarro on 35mm film with spherical lenses, finished photochemically, and presented in the aspect ratio of 1.85:1. The Criterion Collection debuts the film on Ultra HD with a 4K restoration from the original camera negative, supervised and approved by Guillermo del Toro. According to the booklet included with this release, “The restoration was undertaken by Les Films du Camelia, in collaboration with the BFI National Archive, at L’Immagine Rritrovata, with the support of Cartier.” It has been graded for High Dynamic Range in HDR10 and Dolby Vision, and presented on a triple-layered BD-100 disc. There are many positives about this new presentation, yet despite the increased resolution, it does have what’s bound to be a controversial revisionist approach when it comes to its color.
The positives first: grain is tightly-knitted, detail has been boosted, and the bitrate sits primarily in the 80 to 90Mbps range, dipping only when there’s less detail on screen to take advantage of. Contrast is quite good, as well, with super deep blacks, and the overall image is stable and clean from end to end. Unfortunately, Guillermo del Toro, presumably without the involvement of cinematographer Guillermo Navaro, has chosen to alter the film’s color palette, giving it a darker, overt teal/green appearance, which is much more noticeable in scenes featuring Dieter. It’s an obvious change and definitely alters the tone of the picture. That said, the HDR grades certainly bring out the detail in these perhaps misguided hues, but even so, many will likely be unhappy with this blatant alteration. It’s still a very bold and crisp 4K presentation, but as always, your mileage may vary.
Audio is included in Spanish 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio, though the prologue can be heard in either English or the original Spanish. Subtitles in English SDH are optional. The booklet states that “the stereo soundtrack was remastered at 24-bit from a 35mm LT/RT magnetic soundtrack.” Most of the characters speak in both Spanish and English, depending on the situation. When there’s Spanish dialogue, English translations appear at the bottom of the screen. Sound plays a large part in giving the Cronos “life.” A knob must be turned to activate it. When claws emerge, a metallic sound breaks the silence, and when it clamps down on Jesús’ hand, we hear the blades piercing his skin as he screams in pain. Other sound effects include a person being beaten, a car plummeting over a cliff, ambient street noise, and the whirring mechanism of the Cronos as it’s shown in close-up.
The Criterion Collection 2-Disc 4K Ultra HD release of Cronos sits in a clear Amaray case alongside a 1080p Blu-ray (which contains the previous 1.78:1-framed non-revisionist presentation of the film) with an insert featuring artwork by Mike Mignola, as well as a 40-page booklet containing cast and crew information. the essay Beautiful Dark Things by Maitland McDonagh, a set of director’s notes, photos from the film, restoration information, special thanks, and production credits. The following extras are included on each disc:
DISC ONE: UHD
- Audio Commentary with Guillermo del Toro
- Audio Commentary with Arthur H. Gordon, Bertha Navarro, and Alejandro Springall
DISC TWO: BD
- Audio Commentary with Guillermo del Toro
- Audio Commentary with Arthur H. Gordon, Bertha Navarro, and Alejandro Springall
- Geometria (HD – 6:27)
- Welcome to Bleak House (HD – 10:14)
- Interviews:
- Guillermo del Toro (HD – 17:36)
- Guillermo Navarro (HD – 12:36)
- Ron Perlman (HD – 7:25)
- Federico Luppi (SD – 5:25)
- Stills Gallery (HD – 132 in all – 2:12)
- Trailer (SD – 1:29)
Director’s Commentary – Guillermo del Toro discusses the carefully thought out color palette for Cronos. Blues and whites are prominent in most scenes, allowing for blood to dominate. He explains how he came up with the design of the Cronos. He insisted that the inner workings of device had to be shown, making it necessary to build a working model of the mechanism. Thirteen devices were constructed, each mechanized by tiny guitar wire. At the end of production, all disappeared and were likely stolen. Del Toro describes the low-tech way of wrangling cockroaches for a key scene. The budget for Cronos was small for an international film but large for a Mexican production. The director speaks about the casting of Ron Perlman and mentions other film projects they worked on together, including the Hellboy films. Del Toro acknowledges how fortunate he was to have Federico Luppi as his star. The director gave every actor a biography of his or her character. Sometimes the bios were several pages long. He cast Tamara Shanath because she had a soulful look. Angel reflects blind ambition. He hopes to inherit a business but has no plan. “The nature of desire,” notes the director, is that “it has to be rational to exist.” Cronos was completed with little time to spare before being shown at a film festival. Del Toro recalls “crying like a baby” when the film won. The term “vampire” is never uttered in the film, but much vampire lore is present. Jesús is more alive after dying than he was as a living man. Suffering makes a person stronger. The absence of pain anesthetizes feeling. The director tries to have his characters suffer and “come out the other side” a better person. If you deal with darkness, you must deal with purity. Del Toro speaks about keeping a diary in which he writes ideas that he hopes will eventually wind up in his films.
Producers’ Commentary – Producers Arthur H. Gordon and Bertha Navarro and co-producer Alejandro Springall share this commentary. They speak about the genesis of the project and note that horror is rare in the Mexican film industry. After del Toro sold them on the project, they had to secure financing mostly from private investors in both Mexico and the United States. Del Toro was given great freedom, with no studio interference, and chose a crew that he had worked with previously. Each producer had a specific role to avoid overlapping responsibilities. In Mexico, there were no established special effects experts, so they hired outside people recommended by make-up master Dick Smith. The Cronos device is described as a combination of a Faberge egg and a time machine. Cronos had a nine-week shooting schedule. Almost every set had to be built, which was costly.
Geometria – This is a 1987 short horror film directed by Guillermo del Toro. It’s accompanied by a new video interview with del Toro in which he discusses the film and its alterations. Based on a story by Frederic Brown, Geometria is about a teenager trying to avoid a dreaded geometry test who summons a demon—his dead father—now rotted with a desire for human flesh.
Welcome to Bleak House – In this short, shot in 2010, Guillermo del Toro takes us on a video tour of his office, which he has dubbed “Bleak House.” The contents offer a unique perspective on the mind of the imaginative director. His “man cave” reflects forty years of collecting and contains vintage books, objects from movies, and bizarre sculptures. He was inspired by Forrest J. Ackerman, publisher of Famous Monsters of Filmland, whose home was filled with horror and science fiction memorabilia.
Guillermo del Toro Interview – The director offers his thoughts on Cronos, including what the film means to him and its place in his diverse career.
Guillermo Navarro Interview – In this interview from 2009, the Oscar-winning (Pan’s Labyrinth) cinematographer and longtime collaborator with del Toro talks about his work in Cronos and his relationship with the director.
Ron Perlman Interview – Perlman reminisces about Cronos and his work with Guillermo del Toro. When they met, del Toro was thoroughly knowledgeable about Perlman’s work, which impressed the actor. He wasn’t initially sure of how to approach the character of Angel, and del Toro never gave him specifics. The director did tell him there was going to be discomfort for an American working with Spanish-speaking actors.
Federico Luppi Interview – Luppi discusses his starring role as Jesús and offers his thoughts on the film and its director. Luppi speaks in Spanish, and English translations are shown at the bottom of the screen.
Stills Gallery – Photos depicting stages in the creation of the Cronos device, items in del Toro’s personal collection, family photos, make-up tests, props, illustrations for the alchemist’s book, and behind-the-scenes filming are shown in slideshow format.
Though del Toro manages in Cronos to engage the viewer with the mysterious centuries-old mechanism and its dark effects on humans, he never ramps up the scare factor. The film plays more like a mystery, with the Angel character right out of a 1940s noir. Jesús Gris is a tragic figure, bridging the zone between reality and the supernatural. The film has an undercurrent of sadness but never achieves the level of despair as in, say, The Hunger or Let the Right One In. Criterion’s 4K UHD treatment is not quite the visual upgrade it could have been because of the change to the color timing, but it’s still a phenomenal release otherwise.
- Dennis Seuling (with Tim Salmons)
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