Plot

A mysterious device designed to provide its owner with eternal life resurfaces after four hundred years, leaving a trail of destruction in its path.

In 1536, in Veracruz, Mexico, during the Inquisition, an alchemist builds a mysterious and sophisticated device named Cronos to provide eternal life to the owner. In the present days, the antiques dealer Jesus Gris finds Cronos hidden inside an ancient statue while cleaning it with his granddaughter Aurora. He accidentally triggers the device and soon his wife Mercedes and he note that he has a younger appearance. Out of the blue, the stranger Angel de la Guardia visits Gris's shop and buys the old statue. On the next day, Gris finds his shop trashed and Angel's card on the floor. He pays a visit to Angel that introduces him to the eccentric millionaire De la Guardia that explains the healing power and the eternal life given by Cronos. Angel is sent by De la Guardia to hunt down Gris to get Cronos no matter the costs.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

An elderly antique dealer finds himself at odds with a rich, dying businessman and his sociopath nephew after he and his young granddaughter find a mechanism created by an alchemist many centuries ago that can grant whoever uses it eternal life.—Ricardo Simões

In 1535, an alchemist builds an extraordinary mechanism encapsulated into a small golden device. The invention, designed to convey eternal life to its owner, survives its maker until 1997, when it shows up with an antiques dealer. Fascinated with the strange device, Gris (Luppi) doesn't note that there's more than one person looking for it. The promise of eternal life has become an obsession for old and sick Mr. De la Guardia (Brook). He and his nephew (Perlman) will do anything to get the Chronos Invention.—Maximiliano Maza <mmaza@campus.mty.itesm.mx>

An aging antique dealer named Jesus Gris happens upon an elegant mechanized scarab. When opened, it painfully stabs whomever is holding it, but the wound brings youthful vigor and a vampire's need for blood. The device is relentlessly pursued by a dying tycoon named Dieter de la Guardia, whose nephew Angel, reluctant to see his uncle live a moment longer, must still do the old man's bidding. Meanwhile, Gris's desires endanger his own granddaughter, Aurora.—<jhailey@hotmail.com>

"In 1536, fleeing from the Inquisition, the alchemist Humberto Oganelli disembarked in Veracruz, Mexico. Appointed official watchmaker to the viceroy, Oganelli was determined to perfect an invention which would provide him with the key to eternal life. He was to name it the Cronos device. Four hundred years later, one night in 1937, part of a wall in a building collapsed. Amongst the victims was a man of strange skin, the color of marble in moonlight, his chest mortally pierced. His last words: Sua tempore. This was the alchemist. The authorities located the residence of the dead man. What they found there was never fully revealed to the public. After a brief investigation, the mansion and its contents were sold at public auction. Never on any list or inventory was the Cronos device mentioned. As far as anyone knew, it never existed."

What was not revealed to the public was that a human male was found hanging from his feet, his blood draining into a basin. Also unknown to the public, except for a dying millionaire named de la Guardia [Claudio Brook] who will stop at nothing to obtain it, the Cronos device had been hidden in the base of a statue of an archangel. De la Guardia had spent his life acquiring old statues of archangels, always in search of the hidden Cronos device... so far in vain... until the day that the archangel shows up in the antique shop of Jesus Gris [Frederico Luppi]. Jesus and his granddaughter find the device and, not knowing what it is, Jesus activates it. He is horrified as claws protrude from the orb, hold fast to his hand and proceed to dig into his flesh.

Meanwhile, de la Guardia (who lives in an antiseptic chamber) sends his nephew Angel [Ron Perlman] to buy the archangel. When the statue proves to be empty, however, Angel is forced to take strong measures. He kills Jesus. Fortunately, Jesus has come to realize that the Cronos device confers immortality, and he uses it. But there is a cost. He begins to crave human blood, and his flesh starts peeling off, exposing a strange layer of skin, the color of marble in moonlight. In the final confrontation between Jesus, de la Guardia, and Angel, Jesus emerges victorious. Still, he smashes the Cronos device and goes home to Aurora and his girlfriend... to die. [Original synopsis by bj_kuehl]

___ A voice over (Jorge Martínez de Hoyos) tells the story of Humberto Oganelli (Mario Iván Martínez), an Alchimist who arrived to Veracruz in Mexico running away from the Inquisition. In 1937, a building collapsed, and a grey-skinned men was discovered. It was Oganellli, the inventor of the Cronos device. He is supposed to die at that moment, impalled onto an iron stick. Every together renmant of that building was auctioned, including the small statue of an angel.

Years later, the angel appears at the antiquarian's shop. Somebody (Luis Rodríguez) enters to look at it but leaves without buying it. Jesús Gris (Federico Luppi) has bought it. He realises that the angel is hollow, because, through one of the eyes' empty plaster socket, several huge bus fall down to the floor. Jesús picks up a kind of oval machinery thingy; it's the Cronos watch, a golden watch in the shape of a metal scarab. His mute granddaughter, Aurora (Tamara Shanath) is with him when he finds it.

Ángel de la Guardia (Ron Perlman) is told where the angel statue is. In his turn, he tells his uncle, a millionaire De la Guardia (Claudio Brook) the news. De la Guardia wants the angel statue at all costs. Ángel buys it for him.

Jesús wants to keep the watch. He sets the machiney onto motion. At first, it looks safe, but then 6 cocroach-like legs protude from the watch and make a hole on his hand. He doesn't let Aurora to get near the thing. His girlfriend Mercedes (Margarita Isabel), a tango-dance teacher, tends to his wound. She takes out a kind of metal sting from his hand and gives him some stiches.

At night, Jesús doesn't feel very well. He goes to drink some water to the fridge, but the thing which attracts him the most is the bright red meat. Jesús feels restless. He sets the watch in motion again. A fourth sting comes out of the back side of the watch. That morning, the sun is shining outside. Jesús draws the curtains. His face looks much longer, but he shaves and he tells his girlfriend that he looks much younger because he has saved his white-haired moustache.

When Jesús arrives to the shop, it has been vandalised. He contronts Ángel. He is frustrated because the archangel statue was hollow... and empty. De la Guardia tells him about the history of the Cronos mechanism. He also admits that he's dying of his sickness, and no treatment has worked so far. Jesús doesn't want to lose the Cronos. Jesús leaves on a hurry by the rooftop trying to look for Aurora, as he suddenly realises she's in danger. Aurora has picked up the Cronos to play with it. When he finds Aurora, he realises that she is frightened and tries to hide from him, or maybe she's scared about him, in any case she stops playing with her toy teaset and hides away from him. He tries to calm her down. She has hidden the Cronos inside her teddy bear. Immediately, Jesús uses the Cronos again, this time on his chest.

Jesús is still guessing at the nature of the Cronos, but he feels that it's doing him good. His chest wound now expels a kind of mucose, and his eyes feel weird. Mercedes insists on his leaving the bathroom and go with her to the New Year's Eve party. Mercedes wonders how anyone can change so fast in such a short period of time. They dance in love there at the party. Aurora goes with them, but the girl usually stays on her own, silent as always. During the party, a man (Javier Álvarez) gets hurt and starts bleeding profusely. Jesús can't refrain from following that man to the gent's. They make small talk, but Jesús can't stop himself from staring at the spilled blood. He gets down on the floor to lick a blood stain. Somebody kicks him while he's doing that, knocking him out. The countdown to the first day of the year is being celebrated by everybody else. Meanwhile, Jesús is pushed out of the place where the party takes place.

When he wakes up, he's in a car with Ángel, who beats him up. Ángel won't stop seeking the Cronos. Jesús asks what they want it for. Ángel leaves Jesús unconscious. Ángel pushes the car down from a cliff with Jesús inside.

A funeral technician called Tito (Daniel Giménez Cacho) is preparing Jesús' corpse for burial. He is told that he'll be cremated, so all his excellent artistic work will be useless. De la Guardia tells off his nephew because he couldn't get the scarab and probably Jesús is still alive. Ángel goes to the funeral home and tries to wake Jesús up by closing his nostrils. Ángel leaves him for dead. Tito prepares the crematorium to burn the coffin - but there are problems with the gas and the piping, as all the tubes and pipes are really old and they would need maintenance. The technician leaves the room for some seconds to solve the problem. He doesn't realise that the coffee is empty, he just closes it down again without thinking about it. Ángel appears with the funeral house director (Juan Carlos Colombo) to enquire about the body of Jesús. The technician shows him the empty coffin burning to ashes in the oven. Ángel smiles.

It's freezing. It's night. Jesús walks dazed confused and with a grey wounded face. He stops by a rubbish bin and he sees printed his own orbituary. Jesús tries to phone Mercedes. When he finally speaks up, Mercedes hangs up. Jesús limps home. It's Christmas and decorations are on the streets and the main hall of his building. He is opened the door by Aurora, who offers a towel for him. Jesús uses the Cronos mechanism again.

Daylight really hurts him, so he hides inside an old trunk. Aurora paints the trunk and keeps on playing. Jesús writes a long letter to Mercedes. Jesús' faces is worst still. Jesús comes back to De la Guardia's warehouse, and he realises that Aurora has followed him. He tries to scare her away. She finds the little book written by Humberto Oganelli. There are some pages missing, and De la Guardia says that he's eaten them. De la Guardia takes off some pieces of dangling skin from Jesús' face nows feels metalic. De la Guardia rings the bell for his son. Ángel is pissed off at being disturbed by his uncle. De la Guardia tells Jesús that he needs to artifact to keep himself alive, and that he also needs blood. Jesús shows the Cronos to him and asks for the exit.

De la Guardia knighs him. He fights with Jesús, but Aurora hits De la Guardia with a long stick. Jesús wakes up. Ángel appears and he tries to talk to his uncle. Jesús drinks the blood from De la Guardia's body. Ángel gets off from the lift and finds his uncle dead. Jesús and Aurora have hidden away. Ángel laughs with joy as everything will become his. However, at that moment, De la Guardia asks him for help, but his nephew kills him, fed up of being kept waiting.

Jesús and Aurora hit Ángel. They run across the rooftops. He tells her granddaughter to leave by doing down the façade's ladder. Ángel hits Jesús. His victim looks week and unable to defend himself: he can only crawl away from him. To end the matter, Jesús throws himself agains Ángel's body, making him fall to the floor. Aurora sets the mechanism onto motion. Inside the scarab, a huge bag gives Jesús life. Aurora caresses Jesús' deformed face. Jesús peels off his own skin. Aurora was a bit hurt, so she's broken her lip. She offers her blood to Jesús, who finally decides to reject it with a supreme effort.

Jesús shouts "NO!", and he removes the Cronos from his chest. He uses a stone to break it into pieces. He repeats his own name over and over again.

Jesús dies, being cried by his granddaughter Aurora.

---written by KrystelClaire