Guillermo del Toro’s ‘Cronos’ gets Criterion Collection release

Guillermo del Toro’s debut feature film “Cronos,” released in 1993, is getting a 4k and Blu-ray bundle Criterion Collection release for purchase on February 25, 2025.

Del Toro supervised and approved the 4k digital restoration, including special edition features, with a 2.0 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. There is a 4K UHD disc in Dolby Vision HDR with a Blu-ray and special features. 

The unreleased 1987 short horror film “Geometria” by del Toro, completed in 2010, is part of the Criterion release and includes an interview with him. 

Fleeing from the Inquisition in 1536, an alchemist disembarks to Veracruz, Mexico where he built a scarab, the Cronos device, an invention of eternal life. We are then taken to the present day and meet our protagonist Jesus Gris (Federico Luppi), an antique dealer who finds the Cronos artifact hidden in an archangel statue. 

Unbeknownst to Jesus, a dying man, Dieter de la Guardia (Claudio Brook), seeks the statue with the device and sends his nephew Angel (Ron Perlman) to the shop to retrieve it. But it’s already too late for Angel. 

The scarab latches on to Jesus, granting him youth and everlasting life, with a price. He thirsts for blood and isn’t going to give up on the Cronos easily. 

Del Toro wrote “Cronos” in his early 20s and released it when he was 28. The film won nine Ariel Awards from the Mexican Academy of Film and was presented with the International Critics’ Week grand prize at the Cannes Film Festival. 

Los Angeles film critic and journalist Carlos Aguilar understands the impact of del Toro’s first feature film in Mexico. 

“The movies that were being made in Mexico were mostly kind of broad, raunchy comedies. Occasionally, there would be a sort of a bigger production or a drama,” Aguilar said. 

“For [del Toro] to make a horror film in the way that he made it in the early 90s was unheard of and unseen in Mexico at the time. There were horror films being made, but not in the way that he made it. This felt sort of like a step forward,” he continued. 

The filmmaker started his career by making short films, studied film at the University of Guadalajara, and worked as a makeup special effects artist amongst other roles. He co-founded Necropia, a special-effects company. 

“It's always fascinating to me when you see the first movie by a filmmaker. Even from that first movie, you can see they're operating on a different level than the people around them. Their imagination, and ideas… it's so different. Guillermo is the prime example of that even from his first movie. He clearly had been working in makeup, in other things, for a long time. Now that he's had his career it's easy to say, ‘Well, of course, look at his first movie. It's such a unique piece of cinema’,” Aguilar said. 

“The promise of the first film has more than paid off. He’s delivered far beyond what anyone could have expected from that first film,” he continued.

The Cronos artifact in the film stood out to Aguilar because it wasn’t made digitally with CGI, it was an actual working mechanical device. And that’s the magic of del Toro, he uses practical effects to make his films come to life. 

The film also has irreverent humor that Aguilar enjoys, which is familiar to Mexican comedy and del Toro’s films. 

“If you follow any sort of Mexican Twitter or Mexican Tiktok, something happens and in the next 10 minutes, there's already a meme or tons of memes. Even if it's dark or terrible. I do think that there is something rather specific about Mexicans and finding humor in things even when we shouldn't find humor,” Aguilar said. 

“The humor in ‘Cronos’ has the balance of the darkness and the humor. The practical elements of it always feel like a very unique blend. I love that about that film,” Aguilar continued. 

Del Toro’s 2017 romantic fantasy film “The Shape of Water” became available last November. Aguilar wrote an essay for the film, which is included in the special edition. 

“The film speaks to the notion of being an outsider used as a scapegoat for negative stereotypes and ideas. It was relevant that a film like this touched on those subjects in a way that is not kind of explicit or obvious, but it’s still there. It was made by Guillermo, who has always made films about outsiders or people that don’t fit in and uses general filmmaking to communicate these ideas,” Aguilar said. 

“The Shape of Water” takes place in the 1960s and follows Elisa Esposito (Sally Hawkins), a mute janitor at a government laboratory who finds a humanoid amphibian in a water tank after being captured from South America and is being studied. 

“There are moments where this creature sort of acts violently or reacts sort of aggressively, because of the interactions that it has with some humans clearly have been negative. It's interesting that this creature connects with Elisa's character. There's a connection there that goes beyond what's human,” Aguilar said. 

Both Elisa and the Amphibian Man (Dough Jones) found a way to communicate with each other without using words in only a way that del Toro could deliver. 

“The way that they communicate is non-verbal. There’s this connection that they have, without having to spell it out. To me, that's fascinating. It's almost like they were destined to find each other, you know. All these forces around them that are trying to keep them separated,” Aguilar continued. 

The film won four Oscars for best picture, directing, original score, and production design in 2018 at the 90th Academy Awards ceremony. 

“Cronos” is available now to pre-order on the Criterion Collection website for its February 2025 release and “The Shape of Water” is available for purchase. 

“It's always great to remind people about ‘Cronos.’ I don't know if everyone who loves Guillermo's movies has seen it, so hopefully, more people discover it,” Aguilar said.