How To Make A Horror Film
Cronos is a 1993 film written and directed by Mexican director Guillermo del Toro, starring veteran Argentine actor Federico Luppi and American actor Ron Perlman, the first of several films on which del Toro, Luppi and Perlman have collaborated.
An old antique dealer, Jesús Gris, finds a 450 year old mechanical device in the base of a statue. After winding the ornate, golden, scarab-shaped device, it suddenly exudes spider-like “legs” that grip him tightly and insert a needle into his skin which injects him with an unidentified solution.
The viewer later sees that a living insect is entombed within the device and is meshed with the internal clockwork. This insect produces the solution. However, Gris is unaware of these details.
Eventually, he discovers that his health and vigor are returning in abundance, as is his youth. His skin loses its wrinkles, his hair thickens and his sexual appetite increases. Unfortunately, he also develops a thirst for blood. This at first disgusts him, but he eventually succumbs to the temptation. Later, he dies, but in one of the more gruesome episodes of the movie, he revives in an undertaker’s establishment, with his mouth sewn shut.
A rich, dying businessman, Dieter de la Guardia, has been aware of the existence of the device and amassing information about it for many years. He finally discovers that it was hidden in a statue, and sends his thuggish nephew, Angel, to scour the world for it. This is much to Angel’s chagrin, as he hates his uncle and awaits the man’s death and the inheritance that would bring.
The elderly antique dealer is not willing to give it up, as he has obviously developed a need for it, and senses that a man like de la Guardia would use it for evil. He endangers his young granddaughter in his fight to keep it.
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