Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders (1996)

"Excuse me, but have you seen my little monkey?", 29 June 2007

How do you explain a movie like Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders? On its surface, the movie seems to be some sort of children's fantasy that was marketed at families. I mean what's wrong with a movie that features a kindly grandfather telling his grandson a couple of harmless bedtime stories about Merlin the Magician? Well, when the two bedtime stories in question feature pets dying in fires, people turning into horrible creatures, and images of Satan – I would say there's a whole lot wrong with it. And surely the movie wasn't aimed at real, hardcore horror fans. The combination of the grandfather and Merlin would be enough to turn off any real horror fanatic.

Getting past the question of the movie's target audience, the movie itself offers very little. The movie's set-up as an anthology is clunky at best. As I've indicated, Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders features two wrappings – (1) the grandfather and (2) Merlin. Bad idea all the way around! As for the two featurettes, neither is anything to get excited about. The first is entirely predictable and features poor acting and special effects. And director Kenneth Berton got even lazier with the second featurette. It's nothing more than a chopped-up version of a movie he made in 1984 – 12 years previously. I don't mean he remade that movie – he re-used it! I seem to remember seeing the 1984 movie and not enjoying it. It's not any better with a new name and a dozen years later.

Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders makes for a very disappointing MST3K episode. With something this bad and utterly ridiculous, I would have expected a real home-run. I've seen the MST3k episode a couple of times not and cannot rate it any higher than a 2/5 – don't put it at the top of your "to see" list.

2/10