Like with Monster a-Go Go and Manos: The Hands of Fate, Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders wouldn't have been known to me if I hadn't seen the MST3K episode. That episode was brilliant in how it tore the movie to shreds and in such a funny way, while the movie was a weird mess. Its one saving grace is Ernest Borgnine, he makes for a great storyteller and deserves a lot of credit for restraining the urge to strangle the boy playing his grandson. The rest of the acting is just terrible though, especially Mark Hurtado as the grandson, throughout he mumbles his way through his lines and even looks spaced out. It isn't just the acting that is terrible about Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders. It looks bad too, too much of it looks like a badly rendered 80s movie, it's choppily edited, the sets lack any colour and wonder and the special effects at best are substandard. If I was honest, my jaw actually dropped when I saw that it was a late 90s movie when it could have easily passed for at least 15 years earlier. There is nothing memorable or original about the music either, it distracted from the atmosphere when it should have enhanced or complimented it and some of it sounded like a really pale imitation of the music of James Horner.You don't care at all for the characters and you never learn enough about them, while the dialogue is atrocious on the whole. Admittedly some of it made me laugh(have you seen my monkey? is a classic), but rather for their ridiculousness and how they were delivered above anything else. Worst of all was the story, it had one sweet moment with the grandson singing to the monkey though even that felt shoehorned in, but overall it was dull and jumped around so much that much of the time it was difficult to decipher what it was about.(it even had a beginning that was so vulgar that it is difficult to put into words) It also had no idea at who it was aiming for, it was too creepy and nightmarish for children(The Devil's Gift segment was derivative of Stephen King but without the suspense, mystery or any effective scares) and adults would find it tame and obviously amateurish(they will also cringe at how maudlin and substance-less the couple segment was). In conclusion, a truly terrible movie that deserved all the bashing MST3K gave it. It is not as bad as Monster a-Go Go or Manos- they had no redeeming merits, Mystical Wonders at least had Borgnine- but that is saying little in its favour. 1/10 Bethany Cox

A lot of Merlin shows exist out there. This is probably the worst one I've seen. The stories are OK but a concept like this needs a lot more magic!!! It's too bad they didn't do more with the stories. The first episode was interesting but the poor production values distract from the drama and excitement. I've seen a lot of low budget films, so I know the tell tale signs. It just looks like they bit off more than they could chew with the money they had. It looks like they spent a lot on the sets and mechanical effects, but obviously ran out of money or something. Adding Ernest Borgnine helps to fill a lot of holes but ultimately does little for the overall entertainment value. The actors are decent but likely needed a few more takes than the budget allowed. Overall, I would say watch the Merlin mini-series starring Sam Neil.

I was writing this correct an earlier user comment. The part with the toy monkey and symbols is actually a rip off of a Steven King short story. I think it was Four Past Midnight or Skeleton Crew. Since this has to be ten lines, the guy who steals Merlin's spell book comes off as a huge jack off. Every time things go bad for him it's actually hilarious. Earnest Borgnine ends up looking like a crazy old man. Whats he trying to do give his grandson mental problems. The kid is like six and he sits still quietly for two hours while his out there grandfather tells him some cockamamie wild story. Worst movie premise ever. The only times I've ever actually was the Mystery Science Theater Three Thousand version which is very funny. As a side note if your actually going to watch this movie do not do it sober. You will turn it off after five minutes.

The movie, a Brencam Entertainment/Berton Films release, is one of the more bizarre pictures to come along in a way, and is nothing more than two poorly-conceived, barely-frightening horror stories cobbled together and loosely tied together with the flimsiest of plot devices. It begins with a drunken medium consulting a Ouija Board and then being killed. It turns out that this was only a TV show being watched by Ernest Borgnine (who played the tough in "From Here To Eternity," won an Oscar for "Marty," then appeared in such shows as "McHale's Navy," "Air Wolf," and "The Single Guy") and his grandson, Mark Hurtado. After the electricity goes out, Borgnine relates two stories he "wrote for television" to the skeptical kid dealing with the never-asked question of what if King Arthur's wizard, Merlin, were alive today ("Merlin used his powers to come to our time," Borgnine drones). The first episode features an infertile jerk of a newspaper columnist in a small Northern California town, Jonathan Cooper III (John Terrance) and his co-dependent, wife, Madeline (Patricia Samson, who pines for a child). After insulting everyone around him, and uttering a great unintentionally-hilarious line ("I chew places like this up and spit them into the toilet!"), he is given the wizard' book of spells and told to go to town on them. Merlin (George Milan), by the way, looks like a cross between Leon Russell and that one Oak Ridge Boy, and speaks like a gay guy on Novicane. A description of his wife, Zerella, played by Bunny Summers, is best left unwritten, suffice it to say, Lulu from "Hee Haw" mated with the Loch Ness Monster comes pretty close.Anyway, Cooper, after mocking Merlin, starts looking through the tome, and talking to himself on a tiny tape recorder, but eventually begins to cast some of the spells. This of course leads to some goofy scenes of things flying about, him being attacked by a cat, and then turning into an old demon that looks like Saleri from "Amadeus; and finally a baby that his wife can now raise instead of the one she couldn't have. The next story features a small-time crook who steals a toy cymbal-playing monkey from Merlin's store (nothing else - just the stupid monkey) and then pawning it off. The buyer then gives it to Michael (Struan Roberts), the son of an addled single dad, David (Bob Mendlsohn), who plays with it, briefly, before moving on to toys that are more fun and interesting. For some inane reason, whenever the monkey bangs its cymbals, someone, or something (a plant, a fly, a goldfish, and a dog) dies. Which makes you wonder why Merlin even had it around to begin with. Another mystery is that why two different women would actually think that a normal 10-year-old boy would even want such a thing, or why the burglar thought it was valuable in the first place. Oh well. This plot device gives us a chance to see two really goofy scenes, though. The first has the little moppet singing "Rock 'N Roll Martian" to it like that one retarded kid in "What's Eating Gilbert Grape," and then David, being told by an angry "psychic" to get rid of the toy, but not to "let it know you're trying to get rid of it." So, the idiot begins cleaning his living room, trying to knock the monkey into a trash bag while whistling ("Do da do do da. Not thinking' about demons No demons"). Even after throwing it away, the stupid little kid fishes it out of the garbage can and is almost run over by a "stud" cruising for chicks in a Country Squire station wagon in a residential neighborhood. The dad has no choice but to take it out in the country and bury it, which only causes the earth to shake and David to almost get swallowed up as the world cracks like a China cup. Once again this begs the question of why a toy monkey that plays cymbals would have such power over life, death, time, space and nature. Couldn't it have been a more terrifying symbol than a cheap child's toy?! Later, after having a tree fall on him and almost dying trying to get rid of the thing, David discovers that his moronic mom brought it right back into the house. Merlin finally comes into the home and takes it back to his shop, placing it back on a shelf instead of destroying it. Yikes. For those who have never had a bad acid trip, seeing this film will give you just an inkling of how it would actually feel.