Alien Scalpel: A Halloween Prop

bquinlan

bquinlan

Joined
Jan 5, 2001
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This knife was designed and made as a prop for a local Halloween production. Haunted Trails is a kind of "haunted house" for adults that raises money for Austin's Wild Basin Wilderness Preserve.

In the finale of the production a humanoid alien is preparing to skin and disect a living human. The director wanted a knife that looked scary and wrong, but also appropriate to the tasks. It will actually be used to "cut" the victim, with the aid of some fake blood hidden in the alien's hand, so the edges had to be rounded off for safety.

I designed the knife to be functional…from an alien perspective. I also tried to make it practical for the production environment in which it was used. The finger-hole grip is secure even when slick with fake blood. I hollow-ground and satin-finished the blades to make them stand out, despite their rounded edges. The high polish that I originally put on the rest of the knife didn't look good in low light, so I mottled it to add a little visual texture.

(I'd like to claim that the crude look is intentional. I think it works for the intended purpose, but sadly it is also the current limit of my ability and the time I had to get this thing made.)

Despite everything I am fairly pleased with the way this worked out.

--Bob Q
 
Don't let Mulder see you with that. Incidently, do you have any idea what liver and onions goes for on Beta Reticuli? Explains the cattle mutilations. ;>
 
A very interesting design, with the claw/skinner combo and index finger hole. Does anyone else make a similar knife? If not, you may be onto something... ;)

Wild Basin Wilderness Preserve? I'll have to check them out. I'm a regular contributor to the WWF (World Wildlife Fund, not wrestling, fercrissake!)
 
That looks really cool! I love Halloween, but I'd be scared if an alien was coming at me with that! :eek:
 
Warbird_Scimitar said:
A very interesting design, with the claw/skinner combo and index finger hole. Does anyone else make a similar knife? If not, you may be onto something... ;)
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Yeah, I am aware that something of the sort has been done before... :)

I've never been fond of hawkbills, but I love the overall concept of the La Griffe. It's grip has been a major inspiration in my own designs.

In my original version of the Alien Scapel the skinning blade just extended out into a sort of drop-point at the end. It looked strange, but not particularly scary. Eventually I realized that adding a secondary hawkbill would make it look even stranger while giving it just the disturbing look I wanted. And a hawkbill is just the thing for slicing through those slippery arteries... ;)

I'm glad you like the design!

As for Wild Basin, it's basically a local park, but not too many cities have their own wilderness preserves. I love Austin! Check out their web site at http://www.wildbasin.org/ for details.

--Bob Q
 
tknife said:
That looks really cool! I love Halloween, but I'd be scared if an alien was coming at me with that! :eek:
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Thanks!

In the original version of the script, one of the guests in each group was going to be separated out and asked to play along. After being reintroduced to the group that person would be "cut" with the knife, fake blood and all. I suspect that would have been plenty traumatic for their friends, which was the whole point. :D Unfortunately, other changes in sequencing made it necessary to substitute a cast member as the victim.

One of the fun things about Haunted Trails is that it has never tried to be your typical haunted house. Children under 13 are not allowed in. Guests are required to interact with the cast and their decisions affect the storyline. The whole experience takes more than an hour and you have to crawl, climb, and almost certainly run. Setting out to give cynical adults a good scare isn't easy, but Haunted Trails usually manages.

--Bob Q
 
I just heard back about the way they finally ended up using my knife... The "alien" is back to actually using the knife on guests. Better yet, they are not being warned about what is going to happen.

For the final touch of cruelty, the knife has been rigged to carry a low-powered AC current that grounds through the victim on contact. That gives the victim a strange tingling sensation just where they are apparently being cut. Combine that with the sudden presence of a bloody line on their skin (stage blood) and a lot of them really believe they've been sliced, at least for a few seconds. Now that is a halloween production for adults! :eek:

--Bob Q
 
bquinlan said:
I just heard back about the way they finally ended up using my knife... The "alien" is back to actually using the knife on guests. Better yet, they are not being warned about what is going to happen.

For the final touch of cruelty, the knife has been rigged to carry a low-powered AC current that grounds through the victim on contact. That gives the victim a strange tingling sensation just where they are apparently being cut. Combine that with the sudden presence of a bloody line on their skin (stage blood) and a lot of them really believe they've been sliced, at least for a few seconds. Now that is a halloween production for adults! :eek:

--Bob Q
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Better watch out that 1) their AC current doesn't stop somebody's pacemaker and 2) that some trained individual doesn't react to the alien attack and perform his own "alien autopsy."
Sounds like a really bad idea, to me....
 
potterma said:
Better watch out that 1) their AC current doesn't stop somebody's pacemaker and 2) that some trained individual doesn't react to the alien attack and perform his own "alien autopsy."
Sounds like a really bad idea, to me....
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1) The electrical rig was arranged in consultation with several doctors. The potential victims are also selected fairly carefully. And there are paramedics standing by in case anything goes wrong, although they're mostly there for routine injuries that inevitably happen when people wander around a wilderness area in the dark.

2) The victim isn't just suddenly attacked with a knife. They are separated from the group and asked to play along with the torture/dissection scene. While they aren't really manacled to the table, their movement is restricted enough that they aren't going to suddenly attack anyone if they get nervous. It takes five or ten seconds to get loose. None of which makes "being cut" that much less scary.

The people who put on Haunted Trails probably are crazy, but they aren't stupid and they've been doing this for more than ten years.

--Bob Q
 
Bob,

Sounds like the relevant "negatives" (or possible negatives) have been addressed ahead of time...

Sounds like a wild time!

Cool "scalpel" by the way!
 
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