Faced with his own
morality, an ingenious alchemist back in
1535 tried to perfect an invention that
would provide him with the key to eternal
life. It was called the Cronos device
which is a little metal golden machine
shaped like an insect.
When he died more than 400 years later,
he took the secrets of this remarkable
device to the grave with him.
Present day an elderly
antique dealer named Jesus Gris (Federico
Luppi) runs a shop with his wife Mercedes
(Margarita Isabel) and his granddaughter
Aurora (Tamara Smith) as he found this
hellish machine inside a small statue as
he studies it but it laches onto him and
becomes younger.
Jesus is also troubled
by a criminal named De la (Claudio Brook)
who sets his hulking nephew Angel (Ron
Perlman) to vandalsie his shop and will
do anything to get it away from him even
if it means killing him but however,
Jesus can't seem to die but his skin is
starting to peel off and needs to feed on
blood to heal his pain.
Well I had a hard
time following the story of this sort of
vampire like tale as at first I found the
story to go nowhere and I found it
unexplainable on how this person became a
blood sucking freak only to be poked by
this metal type of insect object.
There's the odd funny one liners here and
there but other than that I found this
movie to be a bit of a drag although many
others adored it and was a winning succes
at film festivals.
Maybe I'm not used to too many foreign
films.
The acting is
average although it is mostly spoken in
Spanish as we have lead actor Federico Luppi
pulling off his character not too bad as
a troubled grandfather having to live the
lifestyle of a vampire type of role.
Ron Perlman stole the film with his
nutty and comedic performance as a sort
of hitman type of character proving
himself to be quite a ham and menacing
too.
Claudio Brook seems to be good at
being loud and grgressive as the nasty
uncle type mobster but is a little too
persistent with it.
There's some blood
dripping as well as some skin torn off.
Guillermo del Toro is
a little slow with his work but does have
some amusing moments too. There are nice
moments between Federico Luppi and
Tamara Shanath portraying
grandfather and granddaughter.
A nice shot on Luppi holding the
golden type metal insect figure as it
pokes at him and he acts aroused which
was passable too.
Good shot down on Luppi pointing
an accusation along with a good shot up
on Ron Perlman.
There's a good shot on Luppi on
a washroom floor lapping up some blood
which looked believeably gross along with
a good kick in the head shot which makes
you jump a bit.
Perlman does well throwing Luppi
around as well as punching him along with
a good close up shot on Perlman swinging
his fist showing a menacing expression.
A nice shot on a vehicle falling off a
cliff.
There's great aggressions coming from Claudio
Brook towards Perlman as it
almost looks like a dysfuunctional moment
between uncle and nephew working together
in a hitman businesslike.
A good shot closing in on Luppi
looking dazed after being a victim in a
car that fell off the cliff.
A good dialogue between Brook
telling Luppi what is happening
to him when Luppi realises that his skin
is peeling off and what he needs to do.
Luppi reacts well when sunlight hits
him from a holey type roof acting in
pain.
A nice creepy look with Luppi
attacking Brook and then him
drinking his blood and then afterwards a
nice cackly laughter by Perlman.
A good battling sequence between Perlman
and Luppi on top of a roof with
Perlman sounding dark.
There's a perfect shot on Luppi
looking dazed and hungrylike while
grabbing onto Shantah
The music is very well
composed by the likes of Javier
Álvarez as he delightfully composes
some polka type music along with the nice
violin soundings and the dark intensity
sound effects too.
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