Cronos

FINALLY! This completes my Guillermo del Toro feature film education, his debut feature and apparently widely regarded as "One of the finest chillers of the decade. A masterpiece - Mark Kermode", thankyou Dr Kermode and thankyou the DVD's cover sleeve.

The first film of his I saw was Mimic, (which I need to re-watch as it's been a while), then came Blade II - CHEERS! - followed by Hellboy, which after the second viewing.. CHEERS!! So i started thinking, who is this guy?!?

Cue, The Devil's Backbone, followed a bit later by Pan's Labyrinth, and now finally Cronos.

It's the story of Jesús Gris, an elderly antique dealer, and his grand-daughter Aurora. It's also, I think, the most original vampire story I've seen. Most of it's in Spanish, although he chooses not to push Ron Pearlman too much! (I'm wondering now what American or English actor has done the most foreign language films.) Not that this is an issue as i was expecting that, like foreign films and can read.

It's a little slow to start, well it kinda gets into the story reasonably quickly after the initial prologue, but feels slow. (Why am I having to wait for my damn browser to catch up with my typing?!?!?), but apart from that it's along the same sort of pace as both Backbone and Labyrinth, and with a similar tone, although Cronos is essentially a contemporary film by the looks of it (albeit made a few years ago now), i could be wrong about that tho, it could be set a little earlier.)

Anyway, it's a brilliant film, not up to his more recent ones, but that only goes to show how much he's grown and also how good he was to begin with.

Well worth a watch...so?...go..now!

Cronos - 8/10