Average Rating: 7.4/10
Reviews Counted: 43
Fresh: 39 | Rotten: 4
Guillermo del Toro's unique feature debut is not only gory and stylish, but also charming and intelligent.
Average Rating: 7.8/10
Critic Reviews: 7
Fresh: 6 | Rotten: 1
Guillermo del Toro's unique feature debut is not only gory and stylish, but also charming and intelligent.
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Average Rating: 3.5/5
User Ratings: 10,232
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This surreal variant on the classic vampire tale is the directorial debut of Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, who garnered international acclaim and several awards. The film tells the story of elderly antique dealer Jesus Gris (Federico Luppi, in a role originally written for Max Von Sydow) who, with his eight-year-old granddaughter Aurora (Tamara Shanath), discovers an ancient artifact secreted within a statue obtained from the estate of a 16th-century alchemist. Unbeknownst to Gris, the
R, 1 hr. 36 min.
Drama, Horror, Art House & International, Mystery & Suspense
Jun 1, 1994 Wide
Oct 26, 1994
Trimark
All Critics (43) | Top Critics (7) | Fresh (41) | Rotten (4) | DVD (19)
This is a wonderfully baroque, gleeful subversion of the days of Hammer. A unique, terrifying mini-masterpiece.
Top CriticYou have to admire the style, sincerity, and overall sense of craft even if you don't fancy the comic-book gore.
A very stylish and sophisticated Mexican variation on some age-old themes.
Cronos is not really about plot. It is about character.
It's also an amazingly assured feature debut for the 29-year-old del Toro, who is both its writer and director.
An enormously enjoyable gothic yarn from Mexico.
A charming horror movie, if such a thing is possible.
A low-budget horror/fantasy with some rough edges, Cronos reveals the dark genius of Guillermo del Toro's fecund mind.
... part melodrama, part morality play and part thriller, more Dorian Gray than Bram Stoker...
Many of the aesthetic qualities and thematic devices that Mexican director Guillermo del Toro would employ in later movies are already on the boil in his debut feature, Cronos.
Del Toro conjures up a delightfully potent atmosphere and motion for it, born no doubt of a real appreciation for such things.
Guillermo del Toro says, "Cronos is an exploded view of my brain."
The truly child-bound perspectives of The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth are still to come, though Aurora has flights of del Torian wonder.
... a weird, heady alchemic brew of antiquated clockwork mechanism, mutant organisms, demented villains driven by a greed for youth...
A beautifully creepy, hypnotic horror-thriller that paints a vivid picture of why del Toro is such a beloved, wonderfully haunting filmmaker today.
This is a wonderfully baroque, gleeful subversion of the days of Hammer. A unique, terrifying mini-masterpiece.
He also makes the refreshing choice of having the monster be all too human and fragile... Cronos is a stylish and innovative take on the familiar vampire movie.
Cronos, at $2 million, was one of Mexico's most expensive motion pictures ever, the cost reflected not so much by epic scope and visuals as in polished production values and careful design.
With this stylish horor film, Mexican director Guillermo del Toro makes a splashy feature debut that impresses narratively as well as technically.
A most startling genre piece: tender, imaginative and wholly its own.
Del Toro's first mini-masterpiece.
A strange debut horror story for Guillermo del Toro. It has a certain charm to it, bringing a new idea to a vampire tale. Character driven rather than over the top shock and gore. Still it looks rather dated now due to the low budget.
March 25, 2012Super Reviewer
Guillermo Del Toro's first feature film Cronos was one that I'd been meaning to get my hands on when a Criterion Blu-ray was first announced way back when. I finally managed to snag myself a copy, and I feel like I was rewarded quite well. I'm always pleased when I find a genre turned on its head and told in a
December 24, 2011
Super Reviewer
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