Film

The Alchemist Cookbook

A chemist-wannabe lives alone in a trailer, chasing ancient alchemy through increasingly unhinged experiments until something genuinely sinister crawls out of his obsession. Equal parts horror, dark comedy, and genuine dread, shot with scrappy indie energy. For viewers who want their supernatural terror grounded in psychological breakdown and isolation—strange, unsettling, weirdly funny, never quite what you expect.

TMDb rating2.6

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you like scruffy, lonely-man horror that tips from bleak comedy into unease, and you don't mind a mind coming apart being the main attraction.

Skip it if you need a tidy plot or a sympathetic lead, since the film is loose, lurching, and its hero is hard to like for long stretches.

What it asks of you: Eighty-two minutes, mostly in a cramped trailer and the woods, with the tone swinging between scruffy jokes and sudden nastiness, so stay alert to mood shifts.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Goodnight Mommy2015

Austrian folk-horror that builds unbearable dread from domestic isolation and mounting psychological fracture. Visually austere, genuinely upsetting, with a twist that recontextualizes everything. A masterclass in slow-burn horror.

But The pacing is glacial and most of the runtime is just watching things get worse. If you need plot momentum or comfort, this will exhaust you.

Goodnight Mommy poster

Come True2020

A lonely teenager volunteers for a sleep study and sinks into hallucinatory unreality. Like Alchemist but more sci-fi and atmospheric—digital horror that feels genuinely disorienting. Hypnotic score, gorgeous unease.

But It's deliberately abstract and dreamy. If you prefer clear plot beats and explanations, you'll find it frustrating and slow.

Come True poster

Starry Eyes2014

Young actress in LA makes an infernal bargain for fame, then watches it consume her from the inside. Body horror, supernatural ambition, isolation—shares Alchemist's fascination with self-destruction through obsession.

But It's genuinely grim and the violence escalates in ways that feel gratuitous to some. Not cathartic; just brutal.

Starry Eyes poster

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from The Alchemist Cookbook

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night2014

Both conjure something genuinely supernatural from obsessive solitude. Both use isolation as a visual language. Both trust mood over narrative.

Iranian-American vampire romance shot in gorgeously bleak black-and-white. A girl moves through a dead industrial town like a ghost; time moves differently for her. Hypnotic, melancholic, visually ravishing. Atmosphere over plot.

But It's slow, quiet, and very obviously indebted to art cinema. If you want Gothic thrills, you'll be frustrated. The Persian-language dialogue goes untranslated in places.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night poster
More like this (7)

The Wailing2016

South Korean horror that spirals from a murder mystery into theological dread. Fractured perspectives, escalating unreliability, same year as Alchemist—both trust no single viewpoint. Haunting and impossible to shake.

But It's 156 minutes and deliberately ambiguous. The ending will infuriate anyone who wants answers instead of existential uncertainty.

The Wailing poster

Under the Skin2014

Scarlett Johansson as an alien harvesting humans from Scotland. Hypnotic, fractured, deliberately estranging. Like Alchemist's sense that reality is slippery—but stranger and more visually elegant.

But Almost no dialogue, minimal plot. It's a mood and a concept, not a narrative. Most people find it incomprehensible or tedious.

Under the Skin poster

The Lighthouse2019

Two men spiral into paranoia and obsession in a lighthouse, shot in B&W on expired film stock. Claustrophobic, darkly funny, hallucinatory. Both men are trapped by their own compulsions.

But Deliberately artificial and theatrical. Some find it precious or exhausting. The accents are thick and occasionally hard to parse.

The Lighthouse poster

Resolution2013

Found-footage horror about a man documenting his friend's attempts to break a cycle of addiction. Meta, funny, genuinely creepy. Obsession and delusion, but smarter and more playful than Alchemist.

But Early-ish found footage can feel dated. The plot is deliberately fragmented and the pay-off won't satisfy anyone wanting a clean resolution.

Resolution poster

The Void2016

Body horror sci-fi about survivors trapped in a hospital as something cosmic tears through. Raw practical effects, relentless dread, same energy as Alchemist—indie audacity making something unsettling on next to nothing.

But The acting is uneven and the script is thin. It's carried entirely by atmosphere and gore, which doesn't work if you're watching for character or dialogue.

The Void poster

Lovely Molly2011

Found-footage haunting where a newlywed alone in her house descends into something between supernatural horror and psychological breakdown. Ambiguous and intimate, like Alchemist's dissolution of a single isolated mind.

But Very slow, very bleak, and the found-footage aesthetic feels dated now. Minimal payoff if you're looking for scares rather than discomfort.

Lovely Molly poster

Come and See1985

Both use the dissolution of a single character's grip on reality as the entire framework. Both refuse to look away from suffering. Both are uncompromising in register.

Soviet war film following a boy's descent into unthinkable violence during the invasion of Belarus. Absolutely harrowing. Not horror genre, but it carries Alchemist's sense that reality is collapsing for the person living it—the world becoming unrecognizable, grotesque, impossible.

But It's long, relentlessly bleak, and one of the most genuinely upsetting films ever made. The violence is historical and visceral. You will feel worse after watching it.

Come and See poster

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