Please can someone review this?

Matt,

See Jheff Poncher's comments: http://www.marketplaceofthemind.com/Mental_Influence.html

Tom

I'm on a Kenton thing this week and will be reviewing it. It takes me awhile cuz I keep having to stop and mutter "what the @$)@#)$ is he talking about?".

Dear Zgecko, thanks for the link-most helpful
Dear Magic Santa I await with interest your views

Title: Mental Influence
Medium: DVD
Arena: Close up, parlor, table worker, strolling
Available: Any shop, distributed by Murphys Magic Supplies

There are three types of people in the world. Those that think Kenton Knepper is a genius, those that think he is full of it yet a nice guy, and those that have not encountered Kentons material yet. I tend to be in the Kenton is full of it yet is a nice guy crowd. That being said this isn’t a bad DVD. The production quality is fine and Kenton is cleaned up and less frantic than he often is. That was nice to see. The DVD looks to have been shot in his house and Kenton is relaxed. See that? Good start already!

The DVD covers two routines, both using a common gimmicked deck with some slight alteration that is easily done in a few minutes, in the case of Kentonism Deck. To be honest I’m not sure, other than ego and Kenton isn’t lacking in that, why he is presenting the idea that these are decks of his creation, they are not. In fact he mentions that he changed the name of the Kentonism Deck because people thought it was the other type of deck then he says it is the other type of deck people confused it with. You get lots of that type of talk from Kenton who is a big believer in words having power to control thought and direct people. Again…I think Kenton is full of it but a nice guy. Either way he presents two routines using a special deck that most of you already own or can easily obtain for a few bucks.

The Kentonism Deck routine has some very interesting handling aspects that really sell the routine. The basic routine is you show a spec a deck, have them shuffle then cut and the card they cut to you predicted in advance. You’ll want to alter the presentation to fit your style as Kenton is a bit frantic during his. The handling though, that is the ticket here. I never thought of handling the cards as openly and there are a couple psychological points that do sell the routine. I liked this use of the deck as it was a bit unusual and you never expose the features like you do in most routines using the deck.

Next is the Duel Reality Deck. Same thing as before, not sure why he renamed it again, unless it was for marketing or ego purposes. The difference between the Duel Reality Deck and the way the deck comes from the store in its normal special way is you turn some cards over. I think most can handle that. This routine is another prediction routine using a jumbo card. Again it is nice, would play in most situations where you would use cards and again an interesting use of the special deck. The reason I don’t want to tell you the type of deck used is I don’t want to give away too much of Kentons work and also there are some pre conceived notions about trick decks and I don’t want you to think “Oh, it is an XXXX deck and I don’t like that” and mess out on what really are two pretty cool routines.

Get ready because this is the first time I’ve ever said this about any of Kentons products, I actually liked this. It is short and sweet but at least the two routines are something that people will consider doing if they don’t mind using trick decks. Well done over all, keep it up Kenton and I might switch sides…

I want to make a point here. On my review I seemed a bit over complimentary. The routines are an interesting use of a trick deck and since virtually everything I've seen of Kenton is pretty bad I was shocked this wasn't as bad as I thought it was. The routines are workable unlike some of his other material so again, if you are a trick deck guy this may interest you. They are not great routines and the presentations will have to be reworked but they are not bad routines either.