#24 Merlins Shop of Mystical Wonders (Wes)

Merlins Shop of Mystical Wonders

Once again the bad movie we had to watch next seemed to be on our list because of its appearance on Mystery Science Theatre 3000. I can’t imagine any other reason why so many people would have seen this movie, unless they simply HAVE to watch everything that Ernest Borgnine ever made. Even then I can only imagine this would be pretty low on their list to watch. Since we couldn’t find a copy of the original movie, we watched the MST3K version, which I had previously seen, so for once after a few really poor movies this was a nice reprieve.

When the power cuts out Ernest Borgnine is forced to entertain his grandson. So he tells him two tales so dull they would guarantee that even The Narrator in Fight Club would drift off to sleep. The stories are connected by the ancient wizard Merlin (George Milan), who for some reason has now opened a curiosity shop filled with deadly goods. I guess encouraging young men to pull swords from stones just wasn't paying the bills.

The first is the story of an obnoxious reviewer (I know that movies aren’t real, but even with the biggest stretch of the imagination I just can’t believe such things exist!) Jonathan Cooper (John Terrance) who threatens to give Merlin’s shop a bad review. Merlin gives him a magic book to try out to prove that Merlin is the real deal, but warns him not to read any incomplete spells. That evening in his basement the sceptical Jonathan starts to read from the book… Will Jonathan believe in magic? Will he listen to Merlin’s warning? How much will Merlin overreact when he discovers Tripadvisor?

The second story is the time old tale of a boy and his possessed monkey toy. When a particularly unambitious thief steals a cursed monkey toy (you know, like the psychotic symbol monkey in Toy Story 3) from Merlins shop, he somehow manages to find a rival store that also specializes in selling any old shit and makes enough money to presumably buy some more of whatever he was smoking that made stealing such an ugly piece of crap a good idea in the first place. Selling ugly pieces of crap is apparently a good business model in this town though as Susie (Vicki Saputo) quickly buys the monkey for her nephew (who I assume she hates). Unbelievably Michael (Struan Robertson) likes his gift, but his gift doesn’t like him and soon mysterious deaths are occurring (plants, flies and fish this monkey is very low aspirations in evil-doing at first). Will anyone make the connection between a demonic looking toy being bought and everything dying? Will Merlin track down the toy in time to save the day? When Merlin gets home will he spank the monkey?

Although this is presented as a portmanteau, it’s really two movies squeezed into one. Well I say movies, they’re more like two rejected scripts for The Twilight Zone, that were found in a Hollywood dumpster and used to line the cat litter tray. Then, after years of being used as a toilet, they were then finally dusted off when director (and writer and producer), Kenneth J. Berton, ran out of ideas to pitch and became desperate enough to finally film the cat pee soaked script.

The first segment, whilst bad, could probably have been a passable episode of one of the 80s horror anthology series like Monsters or Tales from the Darkside. It has a campy 70s horror comic feel to the thing and with better actors and a little reworking of the script would have fit nicely into either of those series, which often mixed badly written humour with light horror.

The second segment has to be one of the strangest things I’ve learned about whilst watching the movies on this list. Because it actually was a whole movie (The Devil’s Gift) by Berton that was edited down and had a few shots added to include Merlin. Seriously when you make a movie so bad that you have to put it into another movie in a second attempt try to get people to watch it, then you know you’ve failed at being a director. If you’re curious as to what the original movie was like, then somebody has put it on YouTube.

I think at this point we really should be discussing the creepy monkey in the room. When David makes the connection between the monkey bashing its symbols together and things dying why the big charade to get rid of it? If you can put it on the edge of a coffee table over a bin, and then bash into the table with a vacuum cleaner until it falls into the bin (whilst whistling innocently), so you can empty it (pretending you didn’t notice it contained a cursed toy (which I’m guessing is aware of exactly what’s happening somehow)), then you could just as easily grab it from behind, jam a sock inbetween its symbols, cover the outside of them with cotton wool and duck tape and then work at detaching its arms, before putting each part into a separate box, fill the boxes with concrete and bury each one deep under consecrated ground miles apart from each other. Whilst whistling innocently.

More to the point, who even sees one of these obviously evil toys and thinks to themselves “Wow, what an amazingly innocent looking monkey! There’s absolutely no way out of all of these wonderful toys that are available that little Michael could be permanently traumatised by this one. I mean if I was to buy him that awesome looking Lego, or those Star Wars action figures that he’s been talking about for months, he’d probably end up in therapy for half his adult life, but this monkey that looks like it was shat out fully formed from the arse of Satan himself will in no way give him even the briefest of nightmares!”

In my honest opinion whilst this movie should be on our list, Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders isn’t such a poor movie that it deserves such a high placement. It’s badly acted, badly scripted, poorly paced and has all the entertainment value of a David Blaine endurance stunt. However, for all the lack of movie magic, it does have a certain creepy charm, much like an old abandoned building or Steve Buscemi. Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders is a strangely appropriate name. The biggest wonder of this movie being is there any level of crud that Borgnine won’t stoop to make?

#24 Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders (1966) (Colin)

Cast: Ernest Borgnine, George Milan, Bunny Summers, John Terrace

Director: Kenneth J. Berton

Genre: Fantasy, Horror

After having to endure a 3hr Borellywood movie involving subtitles which were hideously out of sync, followed by a movie centred on an American Idol winner, we decided to treat ourselves and watch the MST3K version of our next film, Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders, (1996).

As always when we watch an MST3K version of a bad movie, I’ll start by giving a brief review of the MST3K episode.

This is a Mike episode and is from the last season of MST3K.  Technically even though this is episode 3, it was the last ever new MST3K to be aired.  This was due to a copyright issue which meant that the air date was delayed and it was shown 1 month after the MST3K finale episode.  See, this blog is educational and not just a bunch of fart jokes bundled together!

If you’re a fan of MST3K, you know that the opening and in-between segments are generally hit and miss.  Unfortunately in this episode the segments tend to steer towards miss.  However, the riffing is on form.  It’s on YouTube and is very funny; check it out!

But what did I learn about the actual movie itself, well, let’s have a look shall we?

During a power cut caused by a lightning storm, Grampa, (Ernest Borgnine), decides to scare the living crap out of his grandson, (Mark Hurtado), by telling him a couple of dark stories about a Mystical Shop owned by Merlin, (George Milan).

The first story concerns husband and wife, Johnathan, (John Terrace) and Madeline Cooper, (Patricia Sansone).  Madeline is desperate for a baby by Johnathan, a writer for the local newspaper, appears to be firing blanks.

This fact has obviously given Johnathan a chip on his shoulder as when he and Madeline visit Merlin’s shop, he starts to shout abuse at Merlin.  Believing Merlin is not who he says he is, he threatens to write a negative review about the shop in the misguided belief that anyone gives a tinker’s cuss what he thinks.  Merlin, who should have said, ‘Sod off you Jaffa’, gives him a magic book instead to prove he really is the Merlin.

When Jonathan starts reciting spells from the book he realises quite quickly that Merlin was actually the real deal.  He starts to breathe fire, turns his cat into a demon and manages to correctly guess his wife had picked the ace of clubs.  What Jonathan does not realise is that every spell he recites uses life force and the consequence of this is that he ages quickly.

Desperate to regain his youth, Jonathan recites a spell to reverse the ageing and it works.  Too well!

Jonathan turns himself into a baby, to the delight of Madeline who now has a baby to look after and can raise him as one of her own.  (A nice end to the story, I am sure you agree and not at all creepy or in any way wrong on oh so many levels!).

Deciding he hasn’t freaked his grandson out enough and before anyone can stop him, Grandpa proceeds to tell a second story……

A thief steals Merlin’s toy monkey, (which he loved to spank) and sells it to an antique shop.  David Andrews, (Bob Mendelsohn), buys this monkey as a present for his son Michael, (Struan Robertson), but unbeknownst to David, the monkey is evil!  Every time it bashes its little toy cymbal, a living thing nearby dies.

When Michael unwraps his monkey present, things start to croak it.  Houseplants wither and die, (which happens to houseplants anyway in my experience, so I’m surprised anyone actually noticed), a fly drops dead in mid-air and the Andrew’s pet mutt becomes a flame grilled hot dog.

After talking to psychic, Adrienne, (Madelon Phillips), David discovers that the toy monkey is possessed!  He decides he must get rid of the toy and so puts it in the trash.  This does not work as Michael finds the monkey and puts it back into the house. David takes the monkey to the desert and buries it.  This monkey’s gone to heaven, he thinks and he goes home thinking a job has been well done.

Soon after, Michael’s grandmother, (J. Renee Gilbert), visits and gives Michael a present.  Yes folks, you guessed it, the return of the toy monkey!  All hell breaks loose and as the monkey gears up for one helluva cymbal crash that would surely wipe them all out, Merlin arrives and puts his hand between the cymbals, thus saving the day!

Hurrah!

Grampa finishes his story and his Grandson finishes wetting himself and mutters quietly to himself, eyes wide open.  The End!

This movie is 2 actually 2 movies stuck together with chewing gum and is supposedly aimed at a family audience.  As you can tell by these stories, Berton is way off track here and sure, if you want your kid to be a rocking gibbering wreck then by all means watch this movie and give them a toy monkey to play with.

The first story contains one of the worse pantomime baddies I have seen in a long time, Johnathan.  Seriously I don’t know what is wrong with his face but he gurns and chews his way through his story as if he’s eating a tractor tyre.  He looks like a cross between Richard Madeley and the Mask and I really do wish someone would stop him.

The storyline itself though, is not too bad and could easily have been told on Tales of the Unexpected, (a UK series similar to The Twilight Zone in which every story would have a twist at the end.  The twists were usually painfully obvious and could be worked out during the opening titles).

The second story was actually made by Berton 10 years before this movie and was actually already released under the title, The Devil’s Gift.  In the original movie there is no Merlin and the whole family dies at the end of the movie in a massive explosion.

This story is just plain stupid, partly because it would have been very easy to get rid of the toy if David had just kept hold of the receipt.  OK, Merlin would only have issued a store credit, but at least David could have purchased something a little less evil and fucked up.

Some critics have claimed that Berton has just stolen the short story by Stephen King; The Monkey.  I’m not so sure about this, I mean here’s a summary of the plot based on the Wikipedia entry for The Monkey:

The story starts with Petey and Dennis, finding a cymbal-banging monkey toy in an attic. The monkey is actually haunted, and every time it claps its mechanical cymbals together, someone close to Hal dies.

Here’s a summary of The Devil’s Gift:

The story starts with David, finding a cymbal-banging monkey toy in a shop. The monkey is actually haunted, and every time it claps its mechanical cymbals together, someone close to David dies.

See?  Completely different!

Whether this idea is stolen or not, one thing I think we can all agree on is that both stories aren’t really suitable for a children’s fantasy movie, which was Berton’s intention.

I mean, for starters for this to work, Merlin should be a lovable old wizard, a little bit bumbling maybe, but a good egg.  He actually comes across as a sadistic tosspot in both stories who exacts revenge on people who dare cross him, (and let’s remember, Jonathan was going to write a bad review, he was hardly threatening to kill Merlin’s first born!) and is happy to sell death causing toys to families with young children.

What a bastard!

At the end of the day, this movie has not really worked.  Whilst the heavy editing from The Devil’s Gift gives us a happier ending, (although I would have been just as happy for the stupid family to be fired 60 feet into the air and scattered over a large area as originally planned), it’s certainly no fantasy children’s movie.  Nor is a story about a local hack getting youthed for being a bit gobby.

What we really have here are 2 short stories poorly executed and tenuously linked by Borgnine who was firmly in the pension fund stage of his career.  Had these been left as short stories and put into a Sci-Fi series, then maybe they could’ve worked.

Ironically, however, neither story about one of the most fabled wizards of all time, had any magic whatsoever.