The Alchemist (1983)

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.

In 1955, young waitress Lenora (Lucinda Dooling) finds herself inexplicably driving down the California highway to an unknown destination. This doesn't bode well for Cam (John Sanderford), the hitchhiker she just picked up, because he has to endure her somnambulist driving. The duo eventually end up at a graveside in the woods and meet Aaron (Robert Ginty), who is just as shocked to see them as Lenora appears to be the reincarnation of his wife who was murdered nearly 100 years earlier (and Aaron is still in his 30s). It takes quite a film to make me constantly scratch my head and say, "Wait? What the hell is going on here?" This Charles Band feature definitely gave my brain a workout with its bizarre storyline about reincarnation, demons and dimensional portals. The story itself is pretty innocuous and could be for kids, so it is surprising that Band throws in some very gory bits. Dooling is quite attractive as the lead and it is a shame she didn't go on to do more. The late Ginty is fine as usual. I do wonder if Band was slightly influenced by Richard Blackburn's LEMORA as this tends to ape the film's style and setting. Hell, even the leads have a similar name. As always, Richard Band supplies a fine score, one befitting a better movie perhaps.

I have an interest in Charles Band's pre-Full Moon work. He produced great films like 'Troll', 'Dolls', 'Ghoulies II', 'Crawlspace', and more. 'The Alchemist' has it's moments, but will leave must viewers scratching their heads. It's got loose ends and a serious consistency problem at the end. Dull scenes don't help keep the viewers' minds on the movie, adding to the confusion. The hitch-hiking scenes towards the beginning of the film are painfully long and sappy plus the stars are not offering particularly stellar performances. In fact, I don't really care for the characters.The moments of horror are kind of fun for the fans though. There is some creepy (satanic?) sorcery in the woods and demons are released through a portal in a grave yard. Oddly the demons spend more time getting the crud kicked out of them than doing damage, but hey, blood and guts are fun wether of human or demon origin. Gore effects and spooky sets will please fans.All in all, sad to say, I'll probably forget almost everything about this film within a month.