Director – Guillermo del Toro – 1992 – Mexico – Cert. 18 – 92m
****1/2
An n antique shop owner is transformed by a strange, hand-sized device he finds on his premises – back out in a 4K restoration in UK cinemas on Friday, May 15th alongside a Guillermo del Toro season at BFI Southbank
The auspicious debut of Guillermo del Toro (Frankenstein, 2025; The Shape of Water, 2017; Pan’s Labyrinth, 2006) upsets the joys of family life in old age by means of a small golden device which confers immortality on the user – at a price. The narrative opens with a preamble about the alchemist (Mario Iván Martínez from Clear and Present Danger, Phillip Noyce, 1994; Like Water for Chocolate, Alfonso Arau, 1992) who created the device and who was found dead beneath the ruins of his vast mansion in Veracruz apparently aged four hundred or so years and with a pallid skin in the 1930s.
The present day. Jesús Gris (Frederico Luppi from Pan’s Labyrinth; The Devil’s Backbone, Guillermo del Toro, 2001) runs an antique shop and enjoys the company of his small granddaughter Aurora (Tamara Shanath). After a suspicious character visits the shop, possibly looking for something, Jesús is playing a board game with Aurora when cockroaches appear from the small statuette in which the stranger has shown an interest. They kill one of the roaches when it appears on their table. Checking out the statue’s base, Jesús discovers the strange, golden device, putting it elsewhere for safe keeping.
They are visited by the suavely dressed Angel de la Guardia (Ron Perlman from Drive, Nicolas Winding Refn, 2011; Tangled, Nathan Greno, Bryan Howard, 2010; The City of Lost Children, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Marc Caro, 1995), who buys the statue on behalf of his uncle Dieter de la Guardia (Claudio Brook from Licence to Kill, John Glen, 1989; Romero, John Duigan, 1989; Simon of the Desert, Luis Buñuel, 1965; The Exterminating Angel, Luis Buñuel, 1962)), who possesses the alchemist’s handwritten book detailing the workings of the device and its usage and effects. He has bought a great many of these statues in his search for the device, but his latest acquisition has got him no further to obtaining it.
Jesús is showing the seemingly innocent golden object, shaped something like a scarab beetle, to his granddaughter when it suddenly sprouts six insect-like legs, one of which painfully punctures his skin. His initial shock at the pain is countered by a longer term need for the injections.
For, living within the intricate, in-motion clockwork mechanisms inside the artefact, is some sort of creature – presumably an insect? – which feeds on his blood and rewards him with something else in return.
Jesús becomes like a drug addict, occupying the bathroom while he gets his fix applying the device to his chest.
Then he finds his shop has been ransacked.
Angel, meanwhile, is hounded by his demanding uncle who wants the device and is convinced Jesús has found it. So, motivated by getting his uncle to shut up, Angel comes after Jesús and the device.
Also in the mix, but on the fringes of the tale, is Jesús’ red-headed wife Mercedes (Margarita Isabel from Like Water for Chocolate).
It all comes together in a bizarre mixture of seemingly disparate elements: a fable comprising part remodelled vampire lore and part drug addict character study; part observation of family and old age, part observation of covetousness, entitlement, jealousy and greed; part character study, part horror film.
Working on a fairly small scale, del Toro makes the most of the resources available to him. The viewer is grounded by Jesús’ antique shop with its curated bric-a-brac. Leading man Luppi gives a terrific performance as the character grapples with what the device is doing to him. The final confrontation between Jesús and Angel memorably takes place atop a building with a neon ‘ de la Guardia’ sign.
Then there is the Cronos device itself, which which suggests esoteric, Renaissance craftsmanship coupled with a very nasty mind, casting a deeply unsettling presence over the proceedings which will be remembered by the viewer long after the closing credits.
As for the cast, Perlman makes for a charismatic, put-upon and profanity-spouting villain, while young supporting player Shanath proves highly affecting.
Guillermo del Toro’s small, independent, foreign language production would lead to greater things, as the BFI’s current season demonstrates, while Perlman would go on to a long association with the director, appearing in Blade II (2002), Pacific Rim (2013), two Hellboy outings (2004, 2008), Nightmare Alley (2021), and Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022).
Yet Cronos remains an idiosyncratic offering quite unlike anything else in del Toro’s oeuvre. The current cinema release provides the perfect opportunity to revisit it on the big screen.
Cronos is back out in a 4K restoration in cinemas in the UK on Friday, May 15th 2026 alongside a Guillermo del Toro season at BFI Southbank throughout May. Cronos is also available on Blu-ray and 4K UHD as a two-disc edition with scads of extras.
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