The Alchemist (1983)

Sorry, this movie sucks

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

In 1871 a man gets cursed by an evil magician who basically condemns him to a life of hell where he will live forever knowing that the love of his life is no longer with him and not only does he suffer the loss he finds himself becoming a monster at times and he has no control over the transformation. 80 years later his daughter, who is now an old woman and looks like his grandmother, uses a spell to try and transfer the demon curse from her son to a new unknown source. That unknown source just happens to be a lady (who looks just like the mans dead wife) who is in town looking for a place left to her. The transformation is not entirely completed and the plot gets rather confusing, but at the end demons come out and the magicians curse is lifted...confusing!! I had watched this back in about 1990 and didn't recall a second of it except the old woman. It is extremely confusing and hard to follow at times. The hitchhiker the girl picks up adds a funny twist to it and the weird demons are kinda cool. This movie is so cheesy, but it makes it one of those bad/good sort of films.Band directed it and of course he is a horror movie icon, but he offered little here. The acting was okay, but the films production values were below standards. It is good horror cheese from the 80's though so watch it with a bit of room for mistakes, it isn't perfect and it isn't horrible, it's just fun, boring at times though. 3/10 stars

After watching "The Alchemist" I made the unpleasant discovery that lead actor Robert Ginty passed away last September, at the relatively young age of 60, as a result of cancer. It was quite a shock, because tracking down Ginty movies had sort of become a running joke between a buddy and me. With the notable exception of "The Exterminator" - which is a powerfully raw and underrated vigilante exploitation highlight - the name Robert Ginty almost certainly guarantees bad and cheesy but nevertheless entertaining movies. I had tremendous fun watching so-bad- it's-good rubbish flicks like "Scarab", "White Fire", "Warrior of the Lost World" and "Maniac Killer". What made Robert Ginty so cool was that he had a really "dumb" face. There's an expression in my country that perfectly describes his facial expressions and attitude: The light's on but there's nobody home. Michael Moriarty ("Q-The Winged Serpent", "Pale Rider") has that as well. If I could go back in time to the 80's, I'd make a film which stars Robert Ginty and Michael Moriarty as two dim- witted crime fighting brothers. That would be awesome, wouldn't it? Either way, rest in peace Robert Ginty, and thank you for the laughs we had on your account. Ironically enough, in "The Alchemist" Ginty depicts an immortal man who's doomed to live in the woods like an animal, due to a curse placed upon him by a malignant alchemist in the year 1871. The alchemist lured Aaron McCullen's wife Anna away from him through black magic and hypnotism, but in an attempt to get her back Aaron accidentally kills his wife instead of the evil DelGatto. 84 years later Aaron still lives in the same cabin in the woods, with his daughter who looks old enough to be his mother, and nothing better to do but hunting down deer. But then the 1950's reincarnation of his wife travel through the area, accompanied by a random hitch-hiker, and Aaron sees the opportunity to break the spell once and for all. In all honesty and strangely enough, the basic idea behind "The Alchemist" really isn't that bad at all! The execution is clumsy, with atrocious acting performances and seriously cheesy special effects, but the actual concept is acceptable. The story lines are quite thin and the script is rather senseless, but the film contains some delightful random moments. The acquaintance between Lenora and the hitcher, for example, is hilarious and good for almost fifteen minutes of completely irrelevant padding. She picks up a mysterious guy, they promptly start bickering, she drops him off but gets her car in the mud, he helps her out, she drives off but comes back and they fall in love. It's truly hysterical. Beginning director Charles Band – who did a much better job with this than with the god awful "Parasite" – loses total grip on the film once passed the hour, with cheesy demonic creatures randomly running amok and excessive gore to compensate for the lack of coherence. The charismatic Robert Glaudini is sadly underused as the titular alchemist. A couple of more sequences with his evil appearance would definitely have made the film more horror-like and exciting.

semi decent horror flick has lots of blood to satisfy gore hounds cheesy acting but it does have a lot of creepy parts too the script is pretty muddy at times and doesn't make much sense and can get kinda dull but this is a mostly watchable time that is kinda enjoyable it has a really awesome ending and good photography the effects are decent but this does get a little too confusing at times and the dialog is sometimes laughable although the characters are fairly amiable i just couldn't warm up to one of the performances so if you didn't have anything else to rent at your local video store ya might as well pick this up its a semi enjoyable rainy night/afternoon watch ** out of 5

The Alchemist is a simple, enjoyable, elemental morality tale, easily understandable for those (few, I guess) people who understand humanity and what we do to ourselves and our own souls in the name of "justice." I'm surprised and saddened that so many people seem to have missed the point of the film. It's worth seeing.