Cronos

Cronos (1993)

Ranking: Yes
Surprisingly Tasteful

Gothic vampire movie about a friendly old antiques dealer (Federico Luppi) who accidentally activates an ancient device which turns him into a vampire. That's so sad. I mean, he's such a nice guy and then he gets turned into a friggin vampire. Shit, man.

This was apparently the first flick from Guillermo del Toro (or "the guy who did Pan's Labyrinth" as he is often referred to in my circle). It's totally creepy and fucked up, but also kind of sweet in a weird way. Not only is it a vampire movie, it's also about the relationship between the guy and his cute granddaughter.

And there's a lot of really cool shit in it too. For example, rather than sleep in the conventional coffin, the guy sleeps in his granddaughter's toy chest. Neat-o.

I dunno, I really liked this movie. It made me feel bad, but in a sort of good way? Ron Perlman was kind of annoying. I usually like him, but as the guy with the American accent next to all the people with nice Mexican accents... he was sort of supposed to be a sleaze, though, so there we go.

Anyway, the flick was all dark and atmospheric and full of bugs and stuff. It had some gross out moments, too though. Watching the dude lick somebody else's nose blood off the floor of a bathroom is particularly nauseating.

First of all, it's nose blood. Blood from somebody else's nose. Ew. Noses are weird. Second of all, it's a bathroom. Ew. I never use public bathrooms anyway because I'm totally neurotic and the thought of licking the floor (a tile floor, I might add) where so many feet have trodden just grosses me out. Also, I'm revolted by tongues and don't really like to see them ever (much like noses, feet and lungs - I have cigarette cartons with pictures of lungs on them).

Okay, so now we have established that I'm totally weird. This movie was really good. Yay.

END

Written and Directed by: Guillermo del Toro. Starring: Federico Luppi, Ron Perlman, Claudio Brook, Tamara Shanath, Margarita Isabel.