This first film from 28-year-old Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro was greeted with top awards at the Cannes and Sitges film festivals, but don't expect it to be that good. It's a modern-day twist on the vampire legend: a 16th-century device, a sort of cross between a Faberge egg and an antique timepiece, gives its wearer immortality - while sucking the person's blood. Del Toro, showing promise for the future, has created a truly Gothic horror film that is ravishing to look at, but his story is really only strong enough for a 30-minute short. There are several moments of sadistic violence, a proliferation of bad language and the same characters speak in both English and Spanish (with subtitles) which is unsettling. The only recognisable face is that of lion-featured Ron Perlman (from American TV's Beauty and the Beast) as the brutal son of a wealthy industrialist who is desperate to get his hands on the Cronos device. He overacts in a hammish way that jars with the rest of the (Mexican) cast.

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