JustJimAZ

Illusion Idea - Dracula Returns

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Watching House of Frankenstein again, I was considering how to do an illusion from the film in real time before a live audience.

Specifically, when the stake is pulled from Dracula's skeleton and his body reintegrates before your eyes.

MY thoughts:

Dracula's skeleton in a coffin, the stake still through the heart area.

Remove the stake, clouds of fog billow out.

A corpse briefly appears leaning forward out of the fog, then falls/is pushed back, and the lid slams shut.
Dracula himself bursts out of the coffin.

General idea - prop is skeleton on one side, corpsed on the other.
Removal of the stake triggers the fog effects.
The prop is rotated 180 degrees so the corpse is visible. It is pushed forward so it can be seen despite the fog.
when it falls back and the lid closes, the back of the coffin and the prop pivot out of the way so the actor can step out.
To make this work, the fog would have to come from the sides of the cofffin.
Only the upper torso needs to be corpsed or able to move forward. It would probably be most effective if the actor was the one to spin the prop around and make it pop forward and backwards. That would create fewer opportunities for technical issues.

Of course, it would be simpler still if the corpse aspect was eliminated altogether, then it's just skeleton, fog, close the coffin, and Dracula opens it.



Thoughts on creating an illusion like this?
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