Next Meeting: 15 March 2025 | Theme: Annual General Meeting | Location: NLB Drama Center

CRIME-MENTAL by Harrismatic

Crime-Mental provides a wonderful premise for a mental act.

It involves 3 spectators on stage.  Each of them, unknown to the performer, assumes the role of a victim, a murderer, and an eyewitness.

In Phase 1, the performer, by simply asking questions, correctly divines their identities.

In Phase 2, the performer correctly predicts which of 5 means is used by the murderer to inflict harm to the victim.  The victim mentally selects the means and the performer pulls out the correct prediction from an envelope.

In Phase 3, using a marking of the victim’s body on the floor, the murderer determines which part of the victim’s body was hurt.  This proves to be predicted in advance by the performer.

In Phase 4, the performer brings out an envelope inside of which contains an item taken from the crime scene.  The eyewitness names a random time that the crime took place.  A watch is taken out of the envelope and it reads exactly the time named by the eyewitness!

This is a wonderful 4-phase mental act that will certainly interest any audience as it involves a crime.  Each phase is a mini-act by itself, and the method used in each phase is fresh and interesting.

The downside is that you get only a 20-page booklet, out of which 8 pages contain the templates.  The graphics (photographs) in the templates are blur and not sharp.  I would rather google for better pictures from the internet.  There are grammatical errors in the writing.  I believe that the English language is not the major language of the author.  However, you can understand what he is trying to bring across.  No props are provided, but how they are constructed are adequately described and illustrated with photographs.

At the price asked for, there should be more detailed write-ups especially on the tips and other nuances of using the various props.  Perhaps, the author’s script as well as proper credits should be included for completeness.  In this case, a DVD, rather than a booklet can be a better medium of instructions.

 

Other than these shortcomings, Crime-Mental makes a wonderful mental act.  (3/5 stars rating.)