The Alchemist Cookbook May 2026

The film sinks or swims on the performance of Ty Hickson, and he delivers a powerhouse turn. For long stretches of the film, Sean is the only person on screen. We watch him dance maniacally to rap music to celebrate a failed experiment. We watch him scream at his ferret. We watch him smear unknown paste on his face.

Hickson moves with a caged animal’s energy. He is charismatic enough that you believe he could pull off a miracle, yet fragile enough that you flinch every time he strikes a match near a pile of gasoline-soaked rags. It is a performance that feels dangerous, as if the actor is genuinely on the verge of a breakdown. The Alchemist Cookbook

Most horror films use a sweeping orchestral score to tell you when to be scared. The Alchemist Cookbook uses silence, and then sudden, grating noise. The electronic industrial soundtrack, composed by Brian McKinley (the actor who plays a character named "The Medicine Man"), is abrasive. It sounds like an old modem dialing into Hell. Combined with the real-time sounds of the forest—the crunch of leaves, the buzz of flies, the frantic scratching of a cat—the sound design becomes a character in itself. The film sinks or swims on the performance

As the film reaches its final act, the unseen presence in the woods makes itself known. Without revealing too much, The Alchemist Cookbook culminates in a moment of surreal, practical-effect-driven horror that feels like a slap in the face. We watch him scream at his ferret

The entity Sean summons is not a CGI demon. It looks like a man in a suit, but it moves wrong. The low-budget nature of the creature design actually makes it more terrifying, harkening back to 1970s folk horror like The Wicker Man or The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.

Sean gets exactly what he asked for: a reaction. He wanted to prove that magic exists. He succeeds, and that success destroys him.