This one has been in my queue for a while and I finally got around to bumping it up to the top. It is Guillermo Del Toro's first film and I really liked it. It is older, crica 93, but I figured it must have something to it to be in the Criterion Collection and I wasn't disappointed. It just came to Blu-ray last year. The cinematography is excellent and the PQ is very good. The audio is a bit odd at times, with what should be the background music overbearing even some of the dialog at the start of the film. Like his other early films Pan's Labyrinth and The Orphanage, this one is in Spanish with English subs only, but there are some sections where there are both English and Spanish and it isn't so heavy in terms of dialog that it was tough to keep up with it.
I am a Del Toro fan, but wasn't sure what to expect from this one. It is an unusual vampire movie in that it is about the story and the characters, not straight up horror. It isn't "guy becomes vampire and then runs around killing everyone"; the story is much more complex than that. The main character becomes a vampire accidentally and then sort of struggles with it as the antagonists try to get the Cronos device from him, the device which made him a vampire. It is a unique perspective and very well presented IMO. Del Toro's unusual ideas are clearly defined here.
Also included in the extras is the Del Toro short "Geometria" which was quite good also, despite being just 8 minutes. There are quite a few interviews as well as a tour of
Bleak House, Del Toro's personal "playground" studio where he stores his vast collections of books, toys, movie props, etc... and where he works on his films.
Highly recommended if you haven't seen this one.
