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Carnivale on the Green: A Railcar Based Traveling Carnival
LEATHERFACE RAILCAR #94
A standard magician's act, the cutting in half of a girl in a box, has become mundane. CARNIVALE, ever leaning to the dark side, has remade this one, inspired by the cult classic TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE featuring chain saw wielding Leatherface. If you're not familiar with the character Leatherface, he was a quintessential bad guy in many slasher style horror movies. This 'remake' featuring Leatherface was a no brainer.
THE PLEDGE: *
A 'CLOSED' sign hangs on a post stating the saw shed will open at 2 PM......Crowds gather......Precisely at 2 PM, a simple, unassuming man appears and turns the sign over to 'OPEN'......crowd quiets......the man puts on a blood-stained apron and peels off a life like latex mask exposing his badly scared skin......crowd shouts..... Leatherface, Leatherface......turning and gesturing to the two security guards standing nearby, instructs them to bring the lady in the blue dress in row eight to the stage...... approaching her, she politely refuses......crowd shouts......take her, take her......the guards grab and drag her to the stage. Struggling and screaming, they lay her on the work bench, where Leatherface begins to strap her down......crowd shouting.....tighter, tighter......then Leatherface drapes a sheet over her to muffle her screaming.
THE TURN: **
Leatherface, gesturing to the crowd to quiet down, walks to the saw shed, gently stroking each saw, his eyes asking the crowd to help him select a saw......crowd loudly responds......bigger, bigger [this is the period of miss-direction required to divert the attention of the crowd; the reason for this will be revealed later]. Choice made, gripping it with one hand and pulling the starter rope with the other, it roars to life......the crowd also roars......of course they do.
As Leatherface approaches the victim, everyone in the first five rows begins to put on various types of rain gear......go figure. Sheet removed......saw roaring......the carnage begins......screaming......yelling......blood and guts flying......crowd goes nuts.
THE PRESTIGE: ***
Sawing stops, the sheet is placed back over the remains....... crowd goes quiet. All eyes follow Leatherface going back to the saw shed to hang up the blood dripping saw [this miss-direction is to reset the actions taken during the first miss-direction]. With a slight rumbling sound emanating from the work bench......sheet vibrating, ......the crowd begins to stir. Then suddenly, the lady in the blue dress, tossing the sheet, rises up shiny and new......Crowd cheers.
THE RUSE:
The blue dress lady is obviously a shill, the live one. The butchered ones are pig blood and gut filled dummies. The shill is strapped to the top side of a rotating board disguised as the work bench top; a dummy is strapped to the other side. During the first miss-direction, the sheet covered board with the shill rotates 180 to expose the covered dummy. The second miss-direction is used to rotate the shill back.
CATCH PHRASES:
She's a cut of above
Catch you on the flip side
I have a gut feeling about this
When pigs (or just their guts) fly
*PLEDGE
**TURN
***PRESTIGE
These are the three parts of a standard magician's trick. The first offers a normal item or situation (like a bird in a cage), the second, is the execution of the trick (cage covered, uncovered, bird gone), and the third, is the restoration (bird reappearing elsewhere) to complete the trick.
