Recently, as an experiment, I decided to buy a few instant download tricks from Jay Sankey's website. This is one of them.
The Effect
Performer introduces a length of string tied into a loop and a standard door key. Key magically penetrates on and off the loop of string several times.
Cost
Five US dollars.
Difficulty
(1=easy to do, 2=No sleights, but not so easy, 3=Some sleights used,
4=Advanced sleights used, 5=Suitable for experienced magicians only)
3-4 although there's nothing knucklebusting here, using a strike vanish as a switch without crosstalk takes a fair bit of practice.
Review
Anyone who knows me knows I love topological impossibilities, and joining two toroids is one of those nice little effects that everyone knows you shouldn't be able to do. To put it another way, I am all about penetration. (Hello innuendo bingo).
I get the impression that some people might be disappointed with this method because they can't do it with a borrowed key, but if you do the moves well enough there will be no heat on the string and you can let people examine the key to their hearts content, on or off the string.
Like one of the other reviews I did of Jay's instant downloads, a couple of the moves could have used a little more explanation, particularly the strike vanish. I have other sources, but as I said before the rest of the routine is fairly simple so I imagine a lot of beginners will go for this.
Overall
Again, the effect is good but it's let down by the teaching. I find all these instant downloads kind of surprising in that anyone who knows the moves already could probably spin out their own version of the effect if they wanted, so they're clearly targeted at beginners (even though the effect is labelled as advanced on the site) there's nothing game changing going on here, and yet the essential moves aren't covered in the kind of detail you'd expect. If you buy an advanced effect, you expect advanced teaching. Well I do anyway.
Not just "The strike vanish is this one, here's a subtlety I use".
Incidentally, I don't feel too bad about mentioning the Strike Vanish because he mentions it on the demo
In short, good effect, insufficient teaching.
6/10
-Stacy