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Karl Hein: The Heinous Collection Review

Volume I: False Shuffles & Cuts

One DVD, ten false cuts & shuffles, forty minutes and $35 bucks. Is it gem or is it rubble? Stay tuned to find out.

Effect/Method/Ad Copy Integrity

The ad copy accurately depicts what you'll be getting: 10 false shuffles and cuts. That's the "effect" and "method." All ten of the cuts/shuffles are extremely deceptive, but of the ten, nine of them will require a pretty hefty time commitment on your part. As Karl Hein says in the DVD, it may take you years to master these, so what it all comes down to is the teaching experience.

Product Quality

The DVD is well shot, well lit and easy to navigate. What it is not, is easy to follow. All the details for learning the cuts and shuffles are there, but it's a bit trick to glean the information. The entire teaching section is extreme close ups on somebody's (I'm assuming Karl Hein's) hands sometimes from the front, sometimes from the back. The film is played in slow motion with text on the screen.

There is absolutely no talking during the performances or the explanations. This is not the best way to learn complex and intricate techniques like this. The problem is that on the right of the screen is some pretty intense, intricate and complex action happening, but I can't look at it because I'm trying to read the text, position my hands/cards and watch the screen. It was an extremely frustrating experience.

Obviously, I can pause the video and replay as needed. However, it's kind of tough to pause and replay every few minutes when your hands are trying to keep together an awkward position of cards in the middle of a false cut/shuffle/etc.

Further, this kind of stuff requires some pretty detailed explanation. It would have been very helpful if he, orally, covered some of the finer points, common mistakes people make when learning the techniques, tips on how to practice, etc., etc. This is a case (like many) where a book would have been much, much, much better. It would need to be a well illustrated book, no doubt, but I think it would have been a much better learning experience.

Learning this kind of technically demanding magic is hard enough already. It's much harder when you're trying to keep up with moving images and text that could disappear off the screen any moment. One of the things that I thought was helpful, was the various camera angles, slow motion filming and the fact that the fingers/parts of the card/deck lit up as they were being emphasized in the text.

However, Of course, looking back and forth between the two (text and images/video) is a bit tricky as mentioned. There's no doubt that a lot of effort went into the production and teaching. However, it seems that the effort was directed down the wrong path slightly. "A" for effort, "C" for delivery.

Final Thoughts

One the one hand, the learning experience will be difficult. On the other hand, due to the nature of the techniques, you're already in for a difficult journey, so maybe the fact that the teaching method is a bit hard to follow doesn't matter that much because it's already gonna be hard. On the other hand — I have 3 hands — if the journey is already gonna be hard, why make it even harder?

Can you learn these moves from this DVD? Definitely. Will it be easy? No. Will it be frustrating? Very much so. Is it worth it? That's up to you. These are certainly some of the most deceptive false shuffles and cuts out there. So if you're looking to learn them, this may be the right place to look. Nowhere have I seen a collection of so many good and deceptive false shuffles.

Final Verdict:
3.5 Stars with a Stone Status of gem.