 Hey everybody, welcome back to Magic Orthodoxy. My name is David, and this is the Magic Review. Hey, today we're going to look at the deceased from Jamie Dawes and Alec Zan. Alright, so what is the deceased? It's a card trick, okay? At its core, it's a card trick, but it's not done with cards, it's done with little photographs of deceased people. And through the pattern, you are able to tell this haunted story about two killers that killed an entire dinner party. And then through a little bit of play back and forth between you and the spectator, the two of you are able to reveal who the killers are. You want to see what the trailer looks like? This is it. The year was 1908, and the newspapers of the time were filled with the unsettling news of one of the most unthinkable multiple murders ever reported. By answering and adding the papers, little did they know that they were embarking on a journey that would end with their death. At 8pm at Templeton Hall, ten people sat down to dinner, and by 10pm, eight of them were dead. Each one had been paralysed by digesting poison and slowly carved up whilst the others looked on, knowing what the remainder of their life had in store for them. And then bring them out, and you should have something that looks like this. All good? Yeah. Now just place them down. Now you don't claim to be psychic. No. And you know nothing about the tentative murders. No. No. Now do you remember I gave you that black envelope at the beginning? Yeah. Let me just take that back. I said that two people killed the other one. Yeah. Can we open this up? These were the two killers on that fateful night. Again, they look fairly normal. Yeah. I wouldn't trust them. Just slide out the one that you picked for me. Just don't know. Okay. That's strange, right? Yeah, that's freaky. Now, if they really were the killers, of course it would say, and if that was the case, then we've separated the living from the dead. Oh. Have a look. Yeah, that's really, really weird. Lead. You're going to break me out, man. My name is Jamie Dawes, and this is The Deceased. All right, so that was The Deceased from Jamie Dawes. This is the first one in a series that he's going to release called The Dark Series, that'll probably focus on kind of that dark macabre style of magic. So if you're into that, you might want to check this out. All right, so a couple of questions. We always ask about all of our magic reviews, and the first of which is what is in the box? What's in the box? You're going to get the DVD. The DVD is 20 minutes long, okay, and you're going to get all the cards necessary to do the trick, and you'll get a little black envelope to put it all in. Is it what I thought? Yeah, it is what I thought. I mean, it is at its core, a card trick, and even watching the trailer, you kind of understand that it's a familiar trick to some of us. It is a trick that has been released in the past, and I actually have another DVD that teaches the same exact effect. It's a do-as-I-do trick, you know? It's a do-as-I-do trick. It's marketed more as a living and dead trick, which would be a mentalism effect, but since it's a card trick, it's really a do-as-I-do trick. So if you're familiar with some of the do-as-I-do routines, it's one of those routines. How are the angles? The angles on this are really clean. All the dirty work happens behind your back and behind the spectator's back. So that would really be the only places maybe you wouldn't want someone to be standing. So that's really where all the magic happens. Can it be inspected? Absolutely. There are no gaffes to this at all, and at the end of the trick, the spectator sees everything that has been in play the entire time. Alright, so what's the overall quality and production value of the video? It's great. It's Alakazam. So if you're already familiar with Alakazam, they make really great DVDs. Great locations, no weird background music. You get great instructions, great teaching. It's all shot in HD. Everything's well-miked. It's good. It's clean. It's everything you'd expect. Is it well-made? Absolutely. These photographs aren't on photo paper. They're actually on a really thick, heavy cardstock. So they feel the same on the face as well as the back. And you're able to write on the back if you want to make that a part of your routine as well. I know some magicians are even aging their photographs to make them look vintage. I didn't choose to do it that way. But you can add that for extra spookiness. And the cards should last you a really long time. And the best part is, even if the corners get dinged up or the edges get a little creased, it won't matter because they're supposed to look like vintage photographs. So I think this will last you a really long time. How much practice does it require? It's easy. It's super easy. Like I said, this is a do-as-I-do trick. The routine's been taught in other places. Jamie Dawn is going to teach you one way to do this. But I would argue that you could probably add your own do-as-I-do routine to this. And it would work just as well. How much setup and reset is there? Practically none. You get everything. It's only a couple of cards. There's 10 cards, right? You're putting your predictions under the envelope. And then you're putting your 10 cards into a stack. And you're good to go. Positives. All right. What are the positives to deceased from Jamie Dawes? You know what? If this is only the first in the Dark Series from Alakazam, I can't wait to see what Jamie Dawes creates next. This is a routine that I am definitely going to add to my daily magic. Negatives. All right. It's one of the negatives. You know, like we see around here, there's negatives to everything. These are just the negatives that I see. They don't have to be the negatives that you see. With the routine that Jamie Dawes gives you, it is a do-as-I-do trick. And so as a magician who's completely skeptical about things, one of the problems that I foresaw in the original routine is that there is a prediction. And there's two predictions. There's this person and this person. Okay? And so through the course of the routine, the spectator selects one of the predictions and the magician selects one of the predictions, which just feels a little strange because you made the predictions and then you pick one of them also. It seems a little... I mean, if the spectator really thought back through the trick, they would think, wait, you know, in the prediction envelope, there was the ace of spades and the ace of diamonds. And I picked the ace of diamonds, but the magician picked the ace of spades. He already knew that was in the envelope. It was magic. You know what I'm saying? So you might just want to look at the routine that comes with it, maybe kind of modify it a little bit so that it creates more of a magical approach from the magician's perspective. You need to really look like you're doing it randomly as well. You're a spectator in this along with your spectator. Okay? It should be a two-spectator routine between you and your spectator and not you as the magician forcing the end to fit the reveal. Does that make sense? All right. So is it worth your money? It's $27, 27 bucks. You get, like I said, you get a 20-minute DVD. You get 10 cards. You get the envelope. You get the prediction cards. It's all done on quality card stock. It's a little close to 30 bucks, but I think it's still well in the right zone for being worth your money. Like I said, this is a trick that you could probably do a lot. It's going to last you a long time. And if you like spooky magic, this might be right up your alley. That said, who would like this? I think people that like spooky magic. People that already view mentalism but maybe want to add card magic in there without making it look like this is a card magic trick because it looks more like mentalism. So I think that would be a great idea as well. All right. So that is my review for Deceased from Jamie Doss and Alakazam. I want to thank Murphy's Magic for providing this for me so that I can do the review for you. And if you want to purchase your own, you can find it from your favorite Murphy's Magic dealer. Thanks. Bye.