Prone to talking to himself and intense paranoia, Sean is on the cusp of a breakthrough - ready to summon something from another world into ours. Cortez is Sean’s liaison to the outside world: he drives an hour and a half both-ways to visit, bringing Sean groceries and refills of medication.

Sean’s only interactions are with his rather chill cat Kasper, and his not-so-chill friend Cortez (Amari Cheatom). Creepy, comical and blessed with a DIY-charm, The Alchemist Cookbook stars Ty Hickson as Sean, a heavily-medicated hermit living a secluded life in a run-down trailer in the woods.ĭay and night, Sean experiments with broken lightbulbs, battery acid and other potentially harmful materials, always consulting a mysterious book with an alchemy symbol on the cover. If Jeff Nichols, the director behind slow-burn, low-key genre pictures like Take Shelter and Midnight Special decided to tackle a remake of Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead, the result might end up looking like Joel Potrykus’s The Alchemist Cookbook.

The alchemist cookbook