True to His Frightful Visions : Guillermo Del Toro Brings a Mexican Perspective to Horror Films

Guillermo del Toro’s passion for horror movies began at the age of 4, when he made a deal with the monsters that haunted him through the night: He would become their best friend if they would let him go to the bathroom in peace. Two years later he began collecting his first horror-genre videos; at 8 he made his first home movie, and at 28 his first feature.

“Cronos,” a film that Del Toro says is a cross between a classic horror film and a melodrama, has already been widely honored in Del Toro’s native Mexico and abroad. In Guadalajara, Del Toro’s hometown, the film grossed three times what “The Fugitive” did; in Mexico City, the film received nine Ariel awards last year, the highest honor in Mexican film, and was Mexico’s official entry to the best foreign film category of the 1993 Academy Awards; it won the Critics’ Week competition at last year’s Cannes Film Festival and is being distributed in the United States by October Films, opening Friday at selected theaters in Southern California.

Del Toro, who is now 29, studied screenwriting with veteran director Jaime Humberto Hermosillo, known for such films as “Dona Herlinda and Her Son,” and “The Homework,” and learned the craft of makeup and special effects in New York with Oscar winner Dick Smith. At present, Del Toro is director of the production department at the University of Guadalajara, one of the most important film schools in Mexico.

“Cronos,” its director says somewhat cryptically, “is an irreverent love letter written with a great deal of affection.” It takes place in 1997, in a “non-futuristic NAFTA Mexico,” Del Toro says, and tells the story of an antiques dealer who discovers an object created by a 16th-Century alchemist from Veracruz. The device gives eternal life to its owner but with one stipulation: He or she must feed on human blood.

The film gradually--and creepily--reveals the secrets of this fantastic device and how it affects the lives of those who encounter it: the antiques dealer, played by Argentine actor Federico Luppi; his wife (Margarita Isabel) and their 5-year-old granddaughter (Tamara Shanath). Others desperate to get their hands on the device include American actor Ron Perlman in the role of Angel de la Guardia, and his uncle, businessman Dieter de la Guardia, played by Claudio Brook. Dieter, who is terminally ill, has in his possession the diary of the alchemist, which includes detailed instructions of the use of the device, and will stop at nothing to get it.

Del Toro believes his picture breaks with the traditional structure of old Mexican horror films. For one thing, he says, the villains are American and speak English; the heroes are Latino and speak Spanish. And while he enjoys working in Hollywood, this perspective is not a surprise; Del Toro prefers a distinctively Latino viewpoint.

“The problem with making movies in the U.S. is always creative: The stories repeat themselves again and again,” he says. “In Mexico none of the films of recent years resemble one another. Our only problem is finding the money to shoot.”

“Cronos” is the second most expensive Mexican film ever, after “Like Water for Chocolate,” with a budget of $2 million. Its nine-week schedule was considerably longer than that of the average Mexican movie; extensive special effects as well as foreign actors, like Luppi and Perlman, added to the budget of the film, which was made in Mexico City.

Raising the money for this project was the work of producer Berta Navarro, who from the beginning was convinced that the film needed to be an international co-production with an eye toward a high profile outside Mexico. Navarro has a great deal of experience in Mexican film: Her first production was the drama “Reed: Mexico Insurgente,” based on American journalist John Reed’s book about covering the Mexican Revolution, directed by Paul Leduc, and she has gone on to produce many Mexican and American projects, including 1992’s “Cabeza de Vaca.”

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Navarro believes film in Mexico is restructuring itself. “Our movies are playing around the world,” she says, “and although we still don’t have a consolidated film industry, this doesn’t mean we will not have one in the near future.”

Principal photography began in February, 1992, and, after post-production in Los Angeles, the film was finished by September.

Del Toro specifically acknowledges the film’s cinematographer, Guillermo Navarro, also known for his work in “Love Around the Corner,” “Cabeza de Vaca” and more recently “The Cisco Kid,” directed by Luis Valdez for TNT. Brigitte Broch was the art director; the original score, filled with polkas, cumbias and tangos, was composed by Javier Alvarez.

Del Toro claims that, unlike other Mexican filmmakers who have relocated to Los Angeles, his interest in Hollywood is merely part of his learning experience. And although his movies may have international appeal, they also have “a very Latin American vision. . . . I am interested in making movies here in Los Angeles, but, of course, that’s what airplanes are for. I always want to return home because my heart and my people are there.”

Del Toro is now in Mexico preparing “The Devil’s Backbone,” a drama, and is developing a project for the American market, “Meat Market: A Love Story,” about an employee of a butcher shop who falls in love with his boss’s wife.

Also in the works is a joint project with directors Dana Rotberg (“Angel of Fire”) and Alfonso Cuaron (“Love in the Time of Hysteria”), exploring the theme of Mexico’s Day of the Dead.