Masked Magician

Haunted Box

Revealed

In this trick, magician presents the haunted box: a scary looking cabinet divided into three parts. He calls his assistant and she approaches the box. The magician locks her inside the box. He then opens three little holes in the box. The first one shows the assistant's face, the second one shows her hand, and the third one shows one of her feet. He then closes the holes so we cannot see inside the box again.

The Masked Magician then takes two big blades and inserts them into the box, right in between the three parts of the box. Did he just slice the poor assistant into three parts?

The Masked Magician then pulls the middle part of the box to the side. Is the girl still in there? He opens the three holes again, and all of her body parts are still where we last saw them. It appears she really was sliced into three parts!

The magician then pushes the middle part of the box back and removes the blades. He opens the cabinet doors and the girl walks out – in one piece!

How is this possible?

Explanation:

When the Masked Magician removes the middle part of the box, he isn’t really removing the whole part of the box. He just moves its front side. Behind it is a mirror which creates the illusion that we are looking at empty space. The mirror is reflecting a surface similar to the background, so it seems to us that we are looking at the background. It’s an optical illusion.

But what about the blades? Shouldn’t they cut the girl into three pieces nonetheless?

Well, they would, if they were real blades. Luckily for the girl, they are actually easily bendable so she just has to apply light pressure to them and they bend downwards after they enter the box.

See the full explanation in the video below.