Yes, it’s challenging, but The Alchemist Cookbook is an engrossing and impactful film that will linger in your psyche like a disembodied whisper. The line between insanity and brilliance is razor thin. Madness is Sean’s captor and, simultaneously, a source of infinite inspiration in this sense, he’s a compatriot of Jackson Pollock, John Nash, Ernest Hemmingway, and even Kurt Cobain. While horror films often capitalize on madness as a source of evil (or at least something to be feared) Potrykus’s examination is completely non-exploitive the terror comes from realizing how easy it is to lose one’s self in the pursuit of unrealistic aspirations. His film does more than simply convey the actions of a manic obsessive personality, rather we bond and empathize with Sean (even if we don’t understand or agree with his choices). I’d hypothesize that Potrykus has personal experience with mental illness, either personally or in someone close to him. Like Sean in his laboratory, viewers are left to assemble a variety of components in an effort to turn a complex film into a golden (if not harrowing) experience. Adventurous aficionados, however, will enjoy and appreciate the challenge. Those with the narrowest definition of “horror” will be the most averse to The Alchemist Cookbook. What you will discover in The Alchemist Cookbook, however, is a powerful character study and a uniquely terrifying journey into madness. If you love CGI, practical FX, camera tricks, digital manipulations, and epic soundtracks, you won’t find any of it here. The script is lean, relying instead on imagery and action to tell its tale. The cast consists of 3 humans, a cat, and a possum. The entire film is set in and around a cramped trailer that’s both Sean’s home and laboratory. The Alchemist Cookbook is an excellent example of Spartan filmmaking: Stripped of most adornments, it’s nonetheless meaty and powerful in nuance and impact. He wanted to live deep, combining volatile chemicals with schizophrenic furor, until the nonessential world faded into background noise, revealing darkest truths and shattering revelations. Sean (played by Ty Hickson) went to the woods because he wishes to live deliberately, to confront his demons while deciphering Nature’s secret recipes, and not, when he comes to die, realize he had yet to crack life’s most sacred and alarming riddles. The Alchemist Cookbook is like Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, re-interpreted for the 21 st Century and processed through psychotic lenses. But when he turns from chemistry to black magic to crack nature’s secret, things go awry and he awakens something far more sinister and dangerous. Filled with disdain for authority, he’s fled the daily grind and holed up in the wilderness, escaping a society that has no place for him.

Official Synopsis: Young outcast Sean has isolated himself in a trailer in the woods, setting out on alchemic pursuits, with his cat Kaspar as his sole companion.

The alchemist cookbook film