Creepy Antiques, Eternal Life, and Vasos de Sangre
After reading Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s Mexican Gothic, I started looking for more Mexican horror and I stumbled upon an independent horror drama Cronos, a 1992 movie directed by Guillermo del Toro and staring Federico Luppi. This was Guillermo del Toro’s first feature film and honestly, the description on HBO did not do this movie justice.
Sure it was a touch on the hokey side, but weren’t most movies from this era? There were a few scenes though by Federico Luppi where it was hard to look away. His portrayal of your average person falling into the temptations of the supernatural was superb!
What's Cronos about?
Cronos is ultimately about how anyone could fall victim to the temptation of immortality.
The story starts off with a historical prelude, describing a 16th century alchemist who unlocked the secret of immortality using a device called the Cronos. Fearing persecution in Europe for witchcraft, he fled to the new world where he lived for many centuries until a building collapsed on him and he died.
Womp-womp.
The alchemists’ house was raided by the authorities, and none dared speak of the dead man’s affects, dispersing them all without any heirs to be found. This scene was very interesting. The camera did a slow sweep throughout the alchemists’ home/lair, showing a deceased, nude person hanging upside down, with vasos filled with blood beneath him. The way the deceased’s body hung with his arms outstretched made me think of el diablo mocking the body and blood from Christ’s crucifixion, a detail I’m sure was intentional. And quite inspirational for my own vampire stories in progress…
The story then turns to the sweetest abuelo, antique dealer, Jesus Gris, and his grand daughter, Aurora, playing and spending the day together in his antique shop. It was at this point where I turned to my husband and said, “Horror trope – anyone this nice in a horror movie typically ends up dying.”
While this is a no-spoiler zone… genre stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason.
Even just looking at his name: Jesus is linked to the Christian Prophet Jesus, the man who sacrificed himself then rose from the dead, what could be considered a greater character to strive for? However, with a last name that means grey…
Typically when characters have grey in their names, it means they might make some morally grey questionable choices, meaning, their actions aren’t completely good, nor are they completely bad, or at the very least, it’s difficult to determine how to frame this character; are they on the villainous side or the heroic? Jose’s gentle nature in the beginning keeps you in his corner though until the very end.
In the story, after an unusually large amount of cockroaches pour out from the eyeball of an angel statue, (how’s that for symbolism) the abuelo and his granddaughter discover that the statue was hiding a secret – a golden, egg shaped device that ends up stabbing its claws into Jesus thus kicking off the inciting incident of this story.
Throughout the movie, there are a number of haunting scenes, particularly developed by the make up artists. There didn’t appear to be any computer graphics, so all of the special effects were done the old fashioned way, which honestly added an extra layer of spook-i-tude (a technical term). One of the scenes that evoked the largest reaction from me, which I’m also sure was intentional, was when one of the characters licks blood from the bathroom floor.
Yes, that’s right.
In this scene, there’s another person who walks through after using the toilet; he sees there’s a large pool of blood on the bathroom sink and rather than use a paper towel or to just ignore it, he swiped the blood into the sink, lightly rinsed of his hands and then left. HE USED THE TOILET AND DIDN’T WASH HIS HANDS AND THEN TOUCHED SOMEONE ELSE’S BLOOD AND STILL DIDN’T WASH HIS HANDS.
Blech.
Can you tell this bothered me? But that’s what horror does. It pushes us, shoves us out from our comfort zones and makes us confront situations that make our skin crawl.
For some people, it may have been the gory beatings one of the character takes in the movie, or the cockroaches, or the scene at the morgue. For others, the quasi-semi sterile hospital scene where the villain lies in wait might have given them the creeps. For me, it was the lack of hand hygiene.
I really enjoyed the cinematography of this movie as well as the soundtrack, which, as I wrote in my notes as I was watching were “on point.” The composer of Cronos was Javier Alvarez, who was known for using a diverse range of instruments in his compositions. Music is integral to a horror movie. Watching any movie without the soundtrack is lackluster, but a good composer can heighten the tension, making your palms, sweat, scare you out of your seats, and bring you back down to a tempered calm with just a few notes.
I would highly recommend for someone who is starting to dip their toe into horror, but isn’t sure about it yet or for someone who just wants to see a great story that involves a very sweet person, your average fella, who gets caught up in an extraordinary curse. That’s something else horror does – it doesn’t just show us how the villains get their comeuppance, it shows us something that unites us all; fear.
If you have a horror movie or book you’d like to share with me, let me know in the comments! Have you seen this movie? What were your thoughts?
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