Aces of Weird: Cronos (Guillermo del Toro, 1992)
How del Toro’s vampiric debut is the key to his movie career
God bless Guillermo del Toro, patron saint of the fantastic. Creators of the weird and wonderful should have a candlelit icon of the Mexican maestro framed above their desk, his boyish mop haloed with tentacles, a third eye peering from an open palm, owlish behind those glasses, bearded and beaming like an eldritch Santa. He’s one of our greatest living fantasists, the monster kid made good. As an Oscar-winning filmmaker, artist, producer, writer and fanboy, he balances a child’s love of the lurid with the artist’s grasp of what it all can mean. As critic Michael Atkinson puts it, “He’s as much a descendent of Borges, mad for ancient anti-science and reflective labyrinths, as he is an heir of EC comics.”
His output straddles the popular (Hellboy [2004], Pacific Rim [2013]) and the personal (Pan’s Labyrinth [2006] remains his masterpiece with The Devil’s Backbone [2001] a close second, while The Shape of Water [2017] finally won him Oscars for Best Director and Best Picture). His name carries clout enough to headline TV shows (Trollhunters [2016-18], Cabinet of Curiosities [2022]), but he’s so far resisted being subsumed by his own brand. He remains an icon of the bizarre, an artista of the arcane, a santo of the strange.
And it all started with his micro-budget, debut Cronos (1992)…
