Cronos

Mexican vampire movies have long been one of the underground pleasures of the hard-core film fan. At their best, these movies are wired and weird, with a freewheeling mix of absurd narratives and easy borrowings from the lexicon of popular culture. They’re usually lacking in high-brow pretensions and, at the strangest moments, they may erupt into divine fits of stylistic ecstasy.

But what can you say about a Mexican vampire movie that’s stuck to its cob-webbed rafters with aesthetic ambitions? That’s the problem with Cronos, the generally tasteful blood fest by writer-director Guillermo Del Toro that’s received the Mexican version of the Academy Award, as well as the 1993 Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. Despite its dabbling in the muddy waters of the horror genre, Cronos is more concerned with delivering a somber meditation on good photography.

The movie’s story centers on a 15th-century alchemist (Mario Ivan Martinez), who created a nifty looking doohicky called the Cronos Device. The mechanism possesses the mysterious ability to extend human life – and it must work, because the alchemist doesn’t die until the 1990s. The only problem with the Cronos Device is that repeated use turns the user into a vampire (like a junkie, the user is compelled to keep coming back to the nasty biting gizmo).

This sets the stage for an accelerating feud between an aging antique dealer (Federico Luppi) and a dying industralist (Claudio Brook). Ex-Beast Ron Perlman is also along as the movie’s chief thug, and his character’s obsession with getting a nose job is one of the few bright spots of the film.

Otherwise, Cronos is all nibble and no bite.