DVDFile

Criss Angel dresses like the guitarist in a Danzig tribute band, with an often Sharpie-black mop of hair, glam-goth eye makeup and a nearly omnipresent leather vest (no shirt underneath), and he does tricks. This writer had only seen snippets of the performance artist's work on random television sets over the years, but it wasn't until this Collector's Edition DVD box set came my way that I finally had a chance to figure out what this guy is all about.

Turns out that the guy is just another magician sort, a David-Blaine-meets-David Bowie illusionist who freaks passers-by out by pulling random, unpredictable props out of places they shouldn't be. Over the course of these five seasons of Criss Angel - Mindfreak, the illusions and slight-of-hand tricks get bigger and bigger and bigger, with both simple chain store freak-outs (his stint at a women's boutique in an everyman megamall is particularly funny, if only because he really scares the crap out of his spectators) and seemingly impossible escapes from Mack trucks filled with explosives (call it 'Houdini meets the second hour of T2') and all kinds of visual trickery in between.

While there's an implicit cheesiness to Criss Angel's on-screen caricature and demeanor, though, I can't deny that there's a lot of material on this set that is truly and earnestly fascinating. Who knows what kind of faked trickery or TV-editing smoke-and-mirrors went in to concocting the often phantasmagorical achievements our illusionist protagonist showcases? The fact of the matter is that each episode of Criss Angel - Mindfreak is fast-paced, over in a flash, and for every four or five stunts he has in each episode, at least one is pretty darned good.

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