Criss Angel Pulls A Lady Apart

Caught the video of Criss Angel pulling apart a woman on a park bench today. Sorry, I've been out of touch with his series, but when I stumbled upon this video online I just about plotzed. It looked great. Of course, it only took a minute to register that the girl who crawled away was NOT the same girl who first laid down on the bench, meaning the illusion was well orchestrated and the video was well edited.

As I searched online for more info, I found many blogs from laymen who had linked to the video and presented their method for the illusion. Some thought it was voodoo -- interesting thought -- others thought there were robotics -- and others eventually found Ricky Jay's references from The Learned Pig book about The Legless Wonder, Johnny Eck doing a similar illusion with his twin brother.

What this reminded me of more than anything else was Richiardi's Buzzsaw Illusion. The first time I saw this I was about 15 at Madison Square Garden's show in the Felt Forum. The World Festival of Magic and Occult. When the Master did this effect, I was blown away. I walked on stage and was baffled. Close up magic I understood, but stage illusions mystified me and still do.

So is Criss' presentation better or worse. Well, having never seen the Eck presentation of yesteryear, it's hard to say, but having seen Richiardi, I would say Criss' is a lesser illusion because it was not done in front of a live studio audience -- it was staged. Richiardi cut his daughter in half every night in front of a live audience of thousands of people, and when her blood splattered the back drop, everyone screamed, and everyone raced to look at her body on stage.

Good try, Criss, but no cigar. Of course, that's only my opinion.