I like to think that we watch a fairly broad selection of the best films from everywhere around the world, as represented in the posts written here. Some regions are under-represented, such as South Asia and Africa, because I’m not sure how well their output matches up to the best the world has to offer. But as my wife notes, some regions are known, including South America and the Middle East, but it isn’t always easy to know what to watch out for.

So I asked around on Broken Forum for film recommendations for these regions and got mostly suggestions for South American cinema. Cronos is the first of these and actually the first feature film directed by Guillermo del Toro, today best known for such Hollywood hits as Pacific Rim and the Hellboy series. It was filmed while del Toro was still based in Mexico and primarily uses Spanish, so I guess it counts as being South American. However, since there is plenty of English spoken, it stars Ron Perlman and its visual style and cinematography both feel very familiar, it still seems eerily American.

Since it’s mentioned in the film’s promotional materials, I suppose it’s not much of a spoiler to state that this is del Toro’s take on vampires. An aged antique dealer discovers that one of the objects in his shop holds a secret. At the same time, a dying businessman has been hunting for the same object for his entire life to achieve immortality, setting the stage for a violent confrontation. But as the dealer discovers, the immortality provided by the device comes at a cost, and no prizes for readers for guessing what form that cost might take.

Even beyond such obvious elements as casting del Toro stalwarts like Perlman and Federico Luppi, this film has all of the hallmarks of this director’s style. It delights in shots juxtaposing a monstrous character, in this case a vampire, with a child. There is plenty of visceral horror, in this case with a particular emphasis on body horror that surely evokes David Cronenberg as you watch Luppi peel off bits of his skin and lap up blood from the floor. And of course device itself is intricate, with grinding gears, fanciful grooves and wickedly sharp spines. It reminds one of how much importance del Toro places on elaborate designs that feel physically and solidly real.

Unfortunately except for the very strong sense of revulsion that del Toro is able to evoke in the body horror scenes, there is too little here that is special to me. The take on vampires is merely pedestrian and the plot’s overall arc is rather predictable. My favorite parts were how good the actors all are. Perlman’s thug is wonderfully charming and entertaining to watch, Luppi can be both scary and funny, even Claudio Brook as the shady boss is a lot of fun. Oddly enough, I found the weak link to be the little girl though it isn’t the fault of the young actress. It’s just that her character being silent no matter how weird things get strains my credulity and is such an obvious signal of lazy writing.

This means that while I found Cronos to be solidly entertaining, I think it is significant only as a harbinger of the much more interesting things del Toro would later go on to make. (Also, that movie poster is totally misleading. No such woman appears in the entire film!)