After he wrote and directed some shorts as well as a few TV episodes, Guillermo del Toro made the leap to features at the age of 28. 1992's Cronos represented the future Oscar winner's cinematic debut.

Back in 1536, a Mexican alchemist (Mario Iván Martínez) devised a gizmo called "Cronos" that would enable its owner immortality. More than 450 years later, antiques dealer Jesús Gris (Federico Luppi) finds it.

Cronos literally latches onto the elderly Gris and immediately transforms him into a more youthful and vigorous man. While he copes with these changes, he also needs to fend off others who seek Cronos for their own purposes.

Though I respect del Toro as a filmmaker, I admit I’ve never found myself enraptured by most of his movies. Del Toro tends to overthink his work, as he focuses on the details so much that his movies can miss the forest for the trees, to summarize a saying.

Apparently that version of del Toro wouldn’t materialize until later, as Cronos features a looser and more “shoot from the hip” version. Oh, I’m sure that when I check out this disc’s bonus features, del Toro will regale me with notes about the ins and outs of the flick’s creation.

Nonetheless, as I watch Cronos, it simply feels like a movie without as much overwhelming concentration on minute details. That doesn’t come as an insult, as I prefer this more organic vibe.

Basically del Toro’s stab at a vampire movie, Cronos takes a while to get to that point, and its avoidance of most genre tropes allows it to flourish. Though we realize the film deals with immortality, the elements related to the horror genre don’t develop until moderately late in the story.

This works, as it allows us to invest in the characters and circumstances without concern for tropes. Rather than become an overt story of bloodsuckers and their challenges, Cronos concentrates on Jesús’s slow evolution and how it impacts him.

As such, Cronos manifests a richer vein than most in the field. We get to know the participants without the standard baggage.

Though it became his cinematic debut, Cronos showed a fairly self-assured del Toro. As noted, this early version of the director might even seem preferable to the older one, as 28-year-old del Toro lacked the “technocratic” tendencies of his later years.

One constant appears: Ron Perlman. The actor appeared in many later del Toro efforts, most notably as the lead in 2004’s Hellboy and its 2008 sequel.

Perlman gets a supporting part here as Angel de la Guardia, the nephew and thuggish henchman for terminally ill businessman Dieter de la Guardia (Claudio Brook). Dieter wants Cronos and forces Angel to find it.

As this stooge, Perlman helps give Cronos some much-needed dark humor, especially when we see Angel’s obsession with plastic surgery to fix his oft-broken nose. We can see the natural connection between del Toro and Perlman right out of the gate here.

Angel doesn’t provide the only black comedy in Cronos. When a “dead” Jesús winds up in a funeral parlor, the morticians bicker in a grimly amusing manner.

Del Toro allows these moments to slightly lighten the mood but they don’t come out of nowhere. He integrates perverse humor well.

I doubt mainly will view Cronos as del Toro’s best movie, but it becomes a very good genre flick nonetheless. Del Toro puts his stamp on the well-worn vampire genre in this creative and involving mix of horror and fantasy.

Cronos appears in an aspect ratio of approximately 1.85:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. Overall, this turned into an appealing image.

Softness remained minimal and didn’t cause many distractions. The majority of the movie exhibited solid accuracy and definition.

No issues with jagged edges or moiré effects materialized, and I saw no edge haloes. Grain felt light but natural, and outside of a couple tiny specks, the movie lacked print flaws.

Colors tended toward a mix of ambers, reds and oranges, though nighttime shots adopted a blue tint. The disc replicated these in a satisfying manner, with full and vivid tones, and they never took on the overdone overtones one might find in newer films.

Blacks seemed deep and tight, while low-light shots offered nice clarity. I felt pleased with this largely solid presentation.

As a product of its era, the film’s DTS-HD MA 2.0 soundtrack worked pretty well. For the most part, the soundfield hewed to the front speakers.

In that domain, music spread nicely across the channels. Elements moved with reasonable smoothness as well.

The surrounds came into play mainly with the movie’s more action or horror related scenes. This meant a good layer of involvement, even if the soundscape didn’t live up to modern standards.

Audio quality worked fine, with speech that remains intelligible and fairly natural. Music showed nice range and clarity.

Effects appeared lively and accurate, without obvious distortion. Nothing here dazzled, but I still felt satisfied with the soundtrack.

As we shift to extras, we find two separate audio commentaries. The first comes from writer/director Guillermo del Toro. Taped in 2002 for a DVD, del Toro provides a running, screen-specific discussion of influences and inspirations, visual design, research, his take on the vampire genre, story/characters, cast and performances, sets and locations, props and effects autobiographical elements.

Del Toro recorded commentaries for his first nine films but skipped a track for his Oscar-winning 2017 flick The Shape of Water. He continued that trend for his two subsequent movies, 2021’s Nightmare Alley and 2022’s Pinocchio.

This seems like a shame, as del Toro always produced simply terrific commentaries, a reminder we get from his chat for Cronos. Del Toro proves insightful, informative and engaging in this top-notch track.

Also recorded for the 2002 DVD, the second commentary features producers Arthur H. Gorson and Bertha Navarro and co-producer Alejandro Springall. Navarro and Springall sat together for their side while Gorson recorded his alone and the two separate running, screen-specific sides got edited together.

Across this track, we get notes about the collaboration with del Toro, cast and crew, sets/locations, and various production elements. While the track starts out fairly well, it fades pretty badly along the way.

This means the majority of the content shows up during the movie’s first half, as the participants pop up much less frequently the rest of the way. We get some decent notes overall but this becomes an inconsistent commentary.

Geometria provides a del Toro short film from 1987. It runs six minutes, 27 seconds in this version “personally reworked” by the filmmaker.

This means del Toro simply finished the reel to correct some issues related to time limitations in 1987. Whatever the case, the creepy little horror tale offers an intriguing look at early del Toro.

The director provides a circa 2010 interview that goes for six minutes, 53 seconds and delivers thoughts about Geometria. As always, he proves engaging and informative.

Also from 2010, Welcome to Bleak House goes for 10 minutes, 14 seconds and provides a look at del Toro’s office. The filmmaker himself leads us through a lively glimpse of his personal space.

Under Interviews, we locate four segments. We get reels with del Toro (17:36), cinematographer Guillermo Navarro (12:36) and actors Federico Luppi (5:25) and Ron Perlman (7:25). All were shot circa 2009-2010 except for Luppi’s chat, which came from the Cronos production in 1992.

Del Toro looks at the movie's themes and related elements as well as his current thoughts about the film and what he learned from the experience. Some of this repeats from the commentary but del Toro remains engaging enough to make the chat worth a look.

Navarro discusses his relationship with del Toro as well as his work on Cronos and later flicks. Perlman relates how del Toro recruited him and their association.

Both Navarro and Perlman chats work well, especially when the actor talks about del Toro’s bluntness with him on the set. Luppi’s remarks prove less insightful but they still give us a few decent thoughts.

In addition to the film’s trailer, we wind up with a Still Gallery that features 68 elements. These show details from aspects of Cronos as well as older pics of del Toro and friends/family.

These also come with caption screens written by del Toro to describe what we will see. They add value to the package.

The set ends with a booklet that includes art, credits, an essay from critic Maitland McDonagh and director’s notes from del Toro. It becomes one of Criterion’s better booklets.

In general, it seems logical to enter the debut of a celebrated filmmaker with caution, but Guillermo del Toro showed an affinity for cinema right out of the gate. Cronos delivers a lively and creative take on the vampire genre. The Blu-ray comes with positive picture and audio as well as a nice roster of bonus materials. Del Toro’s first feature holds up well after more than 30 years.