The alchemist cookbook (2016) showing manual#
The alchemist cookbook (2016) showing series#

Earlier there is a scene where Ty Hickson offers his body and even his teeth to The Devil in return for success. This ambiguity continues throughout the rest of the film. Potrykus remains ambiguous, giving no firm clues in either direction. He also disconcertingly has white eyes, although you are not sure if this is a trick of the light or he has been resurrected from the dead. Or maybe вЂ“ we are not sure what has happened to him, whether Ty Hickson or the gang killed him. A little later there is the rather alarming scene where a bloodied Cheatom appears to Hickson over an outdoor fire where his dialogue runs between an angry diatribe and moments where he seems to be taken over by The Devil. We have a scene where Amari Cheatom returns after something unspecified has gone wrong and he is pursued by a never-seen gang whereupon he and Hickson argue. Joel Potrykus makes the film into a fascinating portrait of paranoia and disintegrating mental health as Hickson appears to be going off the rails without his psychiatric meds. Unlike Alien Implant, The Alchemist Cookbook sits on the fence between the infuriatingly dull and the quite interesting. As The Alchemist Cookbook started in, PotrykusвЂ™s focus on the dull observance of Ty Hickson pottering around doing nothing seemed to be heading in the same direction. On the other hand, I also had the memory of the excruciating Alien Implant (2017), which very similarly consisted of a single character alone in a cabin in the woods as her mental state deteriorated. Ty Hickson conducting alchemical experiments in a trailer in the woods Ty Hckson вЂ“ maybe having sold his soul to The Devil He is joined in several scenes by his best friend Amari Cheatom вЂ“ there is one particularly funny scene where Hickson dares Cheatom to eat a tin of catfood вЂ“ but most of the show involves Hickson alone in the trailer and woods. For much of the running time, there is only one character present вЂ“ Ty HicksonвЂ™s Sean. The whole film is shot in an abandoned trailer in the woods and the surrounding area and lake (so small it should really be called a pond). Joel Potrykus is an independent filmmaker and it goes without saying that The Alchemist Cookbook defies commercial filmmaking conventions. Although for all the title The Alchemist Cookbook and the chemistry experiments we see Ty Hickson engaged in, it is never actually clear what he is trying to achieve.

The alchemist cookbook (2016) showing manual#

I must admit that I was intrigued enough to watch the film by the title alone, which has clearly been intended as a play on the popular, frequently banned revolutionary manual The Anarchist Cookbook (1971) by William Powell. I had previously seen Ape at a midnight screening where it was being promoted as a cult film, although it only left me emerging from it afterwards scratching my head. Potrykus has previously made Ape (2012), Buzzard (2014) and subsequent to this Relaxer (2018), a mind-boggling masterpiece about a guy playing a videogame on a couch that defies any easy attempts to pigeonhole it. ( T.The Alchemist Cookbook was the third film from Michigan-based filmmaker Joel Potrykus. The small team of Potrykus, Hickson, and Cheatom do a fine job of serving up a scary good time.

But there are also scenes that move well beyond one's ability to rationalize scary things, blurring into pure fear. Voices are heard and dark figures are seen at a distance in a forest thicket, visually suggesting the tangled shadows in Sean's head.

When Sean's friend Cortez (Amari Cheatom) shows up with supplies but has forgotten a concerned Sean's prescription medicine, things turn bad. Chief among these is a frenzied effort to summon a demon using a book of occult spells. While Sean's daily routines seem logical (filtering river water, setting animal traps outdoors), there are obvious signs of mental illness in his behavior. Sean (Hickson) lives in a battered trailer in the woods with his only companion-a grey cat named Kaspar.

The alchemist cookbook (2016) showing series#

Writer-director Joel Potrykus's The Alchemist Cookbook serves up a chapter-driven series of sketchy scenes powered by a striking, manic performance from lead actor Ty Hickson.