Pretty Good

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

A wicked magician, a curse, reincarnation, a doorway to hell, demons with glowing eyes: The Alchemist is a hokey hodge-podge of supernatural horror clichés that might have been fun if it hadn't been for the terrible performances and torpid direction from Charles Band (hiding behind the pseudonym James Amante). The action trundles along at a sluggish pace: scenes go on far too long and repetitive shots pad out the runtime (the same shot of four bulrushes is shown three times).The film opens in 1871 with Aaron McCallum (Robert Ginty) trying to rescue his wife from the clutches of evil magician DelGatto (Robert Glaudini). During a struggle, Aaron accidentally stabs his wife, and is cursed by an angry DelGatto to forever live forever as an animal.The action then cuts to 1955, with waitress Lenora (Lucinda Dooling) driving cross country, picking up hitch-hiker Cameron (John Sanderford) along the way. While at the wheel, Lenora suffers from visions that force her to crash her car. Travelling on foot, followed by a concerned Cam, Lenora arrives at a graveyard where she meets Aaron, still young, who recognises her as the reincarnation of his dead wife. What follows is a hoary mess, told with zero verve, with weak special effects and total lack of scares.

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.

The Alchemist is a nice gem from back in the day. Directed by Charles Band in 1981 under the pseudonym "James Amante" This was just before he founded the company Empire Pictures. If memory serves me right, Empire was established then he was planning to make the movie Trancers, which he also directed and meant to be the self video distribution company for Charlie's direct to video movies. Sort of, Let's cut out the middleman. Due to the huge success of Trancers, the Empire name became the main label for future releases. The Alchemist was not released until 1986 in USA, under the Lightning Video label, this was two years after its European release. There might have been an earlier release under the Empire banner, but I have never come a cross one. Richard Band did the score to the movie and this was made back to back with the score to The House on sorority row. A CD is available with the music for both movies.

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