We use cookies to make your experience better. To comply with the new e-Privacy directive, we need to ask for your consent to set the cookies. Learn more.
A falling head costume is a prank costume built around one trick: your head appears to drop clean off your shoulders and land in your hands. We made the best-known one in 2013 with YouTube prankster Magic of Rahat, whose hidden-camera illusions have pulled in more than 1.5 billion views, and filmed it fooling real people in public. That original is discontinued, so here is the honest version of this page: what the falling head costume was, how a head illusion actually works, and the head-trick fancy dress we stock now, every design checked across 30+ measurements before it ships.
Table of Contents
- What was the Magic of Rahat falling head costume?
- How do you pull off a head illusion?
- Five head tricks you can buy today
- Making the head drop land on the night
- Frequently asked questions
What was the Magic of Rahat falling head costume?
In 2013 we teamed up with Rahat Hossain, the magician behind the Magic of Rahat channel, to design four Halloween prank costumes: the Falling Head, the Severed Hand, Sliced in Half and the Alien Chestburster. Rahat was the right partner because public illusions are his trade; his channel has more than 7 million subscribers, and his drive-thru invisible driver prank alone has been watched over 38 million times (Wikipedia). The Falling Head was the one that made strangers stop walking: part costume, part magic trick, it let your head tumble from your shoulders and land neatly in your hands. You can still watch it working on our own falling head illusion prank video on YouTube, and the severed-hand chapter of the same story lives in our Magic of Rahat severed hand post.
The straight answer, because we would rather tell you now than disappoint you at checkout: the original falling head costume is discontinued and no longer part of our range. What survived is everything we learned making it. The same head-trick thinking runs through the two-headed and carried-away illusion fancy dress we build today, and this page shows you exactly how the trick works and which of our current costumes pull it off.
How do you pull off a head illusion?
Every head illusion we have ever built, from the falling head to the costumes in our funny costumes range today, runs on the same three moves. Get them right and people look twice; get them wrong and you are just a person in a costume. If you want the wider field first, our guide to the best Halloween costumes ranks every genre; this is the head-trick masterclass.
Move one: redraw the silhouette. Your brain reads outlines before it reads detail, so a head illusion starts by changing the shape a stranger sees from across the room. Two heads where one should be, a two-metre alien where a person should be. The falling head worked the same way in reverse: for one beat the silhouette had no head at all, and that beat is the whole scare.
Move two: put the head somewhere it should not be. The classic mechanic is a false element in a true position: the falling head dropped into your hands, a second masked head sits on your shoulder, dummy legs dangle from an alien's arms while your real legs do the walking. The audience's eyes go to the false piece because it is where the story is.
Move three: sell it with movement. A static prop reads as a prop, which is why Rahat filmed the costumes in queues and car parks rather than on a shelf. A fan-inflated costume breathes and wobbles like a living thing, a sprung jaw moves when you do, and a practised stumble makes dummy legs kick. Movement is also where build quality shows: thin fabric sags and kills the outline, so ours is checked across 30+ measurements per design, backed by more than 500,000 quality checks a year.
Five head tricks you can buy today
All five below are our own designs, in stock now, and each one runs on the three moves above. The kids picks live in our kids Halloween costumes hub, and if the grown-ups want the wider comedy field, our funny Halloween costumes for adults guide carries it.
1. The Two Headed Ghoul: one head too many
The falling head took a head away; the Mens Two Headed Ghoul Costume adds one, and the wrongness lands just as hard. It is an exclusive design of ours: a long black hooded robe with ragged, shredded sleeves, clawed gloves, and two grinning pale ghoul faces sitting side by side in one wide hood, sunken eyes and all. You look through one face; the other simply watches. As the old saying nearly goes, two heads are better than one, and across a dark room this silhouette does the scaring before you say a word.
2. The Kids Two Headed Clown: double the coulrophobia
Is there anything scarier than a clown? Two clowns. The Kids Two Headed Clown Costume, another exclusive of ours, pairs a black-and-white harlequin jumpsuit, diamonds on one half and stripes on the other, with two white-faced clown masks under wild black curls, red noses and smeared red grins included. Your child looks through one mask while the second head leers beside it. It is the school-disco entrance no one forgets, and it needs no face paint, which on a wriggling eight-year-old is its own kind of magic.
3. The Kids Jaw Dropper Burnt Zombie: the head does the work
Sometimes the head trick is not losing the head but transforming it. The Kids Jaw Dropper Burnt Zombie Morphsuit is printed head to toe as a badly burned creature of the walking dead, exposed ribcage included, and the hood finishes in a gaping mouth of large three-dimensional foam teeth that turn your child's own head into the scare. The suit is 4-way stretch with a quick-release velcro hood for easy removal, your child can see out through the fabric the whole time, and like all our kids Morphsuits it is CE tested. Party-long comfort is one of the four commitments of our Morph Promise, and it matters most on the costume a kid refuses to take off.
4. The red Alien Pick Me Up: abducted mid-party
The Alien Inflatable Costume Pick Me Up is the falling head's spiritual heir: an illusion that makes your own body look like it is no longer yours. A bright green alien with big black eyes appears to have beamed down and grabbed you, clawed hands gripping your waist, while your fake trainer-clad legs dangle helplessly in front. Your real head and torso show in the inflated red top, so your baffled expression becomes part of the act. A fan and battery pack keep it rigid all night; it takes four AA batteries, which are not included, so buy them with the costume.
5. The Kids Police Pick Me Up: caught red-handed
Whoop whoop: the Kids Police Pick Me Up Inflatable Costume makes it look like your child has been collared mid-heist. An inflatable officer, peaked cap, badge and sunglasses included in the print, grips them from behind while they play the culprit in an orange inmate jumpsuit with printed handcuffs at the wrists. Step in, switch on the battery-powered fan (four AA batteries, not included) and the whole illusion stands itself up in about a minute. It is the same dummy-body misdirection as the alien, sized for the school Halloween disco.
Making the head drop land on the night
Rahat's videos teach the craft: the gag lands hardest in an ordinary setting on first sight, which is why he took our costumes to drive-thrus and pavements instead of parties full of fancy dress. Arrive in costume. Practise the move at home, whether that is the two-headed slow turn or walking naturally with a pick-me-up's dummy legs. For the inflatables, check the fan and load fresh batteries before you leave; our inflatable costume guide covers inflation, re-packing and battery life in full. And keep it kind: the best pranks end with everyone laughing within seconds, not with a small cousin in tears.
Afterwards, treat the illusion kindly so it goes again next year: cold hand wash and air dry for the fabric costumes, a sponge wipe-down for the inflatables, and never a tumble dryer. Every costume above ships with everything shown in its photos. No costume fails, designs that flatter, party-long comfort, no unwanted surprises: that is the Morph Promise, and it covers the daft stuff as proudly as the classics. We make your best times better.
Frequently asked questions
What was the Magic of Rahat falling head costume?
It was one of four prank costumes we designed with YouTube magician Magic of Rahat in 2013, alongside the Severed Hand, Sliced in Half and Alien Chestburster. Part costume, part magic trick, it made your head appear to fall from your shoulders and land in your hands, and Rahat filmed it fooling real people for his channel.
Can you still buy the original falling head costume?
No, the original falling head costume is discontinued and no longer in our range. Our current head-trick fancy dress covers the same ground: two-headed costumes for adults and kids, a foam-teeth jaw dropper Morphsuit, and pick-me-up inflatables where an alien or police officer appears to carry you away.
How do you make it look like your head is falling off?
Head illusions run on three moves: redraw your silhouette so the outline reads wrong from a distance, place a false head or false limbs where the audience expects real ones, and sell it with movement, because a static prop never fools anyone. The falling head costume used all three, and so do our two-headed and pick-me-up designs.
What is the best head drop Halloween costume you can buy now?
For adults we would pick the Two Headed Ghoul, an exclusive design with two grinning masked heads in one hood, or the red Alien Pick Me Up if you want the full carried-away illusion. For kids, the Two Headed Clown and the Police Pick Me Up run the same tricks at school-disco scale.
The falling head costume had one job: make a stranger's brain say "that cannot be right" for a full second. Ten years on, that is still the whole art of prank fancy dress, and it is why we keep building head tricks with proper fabric, tested sizing and the gag sewn into the costume itself. Pick your illusion above, or start in the funny costumes range and work outwards while 2026 stock is in.
