Hump Day Horribleness: ‘Merlins Shop of Mystical Wonders’

One of the great features over at the Internet Movie Database is the Bottom 100. Based on ratings viewers of the site give to various films, the worst of the worst films get put on this list. Some of them are on and off in a matter of days. Others stick around for the long haul, showing just how much suckage they truly emit.

It’s time to look at these movies and determine where they stand. Do they deserve to be on the Bottom 100 list? Are they not as bad as everyone says? Will they be off the list any time soon?

Here’s the breakdown for this week’s film:

Title: ‘Merlins Shop of Mystical Wonders’

Release Date: 1996

Ranking on Bottom 100 (as of 9/16/2009): #24 (based on 2,100 votes)

Why it’s Here: MERLIN’S SHOP OF MYSTICAL WONDERS… how does that sound to you? Sure, that’s what I thought as well. Oh, no! It’s gonna be some cheesy low-budget lame kid’s movie that could only appeal to the youngest of kids, primarily due to the lights and sounds. Boy oh boy, was I wrong. Well, sort of… the movie sure seems to be marketed as a children’s fantasy film, chock full of magical things. Who wouldn’t love it if Merlin the Wizard/Sorcerer decided to open shop in modern times? Think of all the cool stuff he’d have!

That is what happens, but the difference is that many of the items in his shop are EVIL! Yeah, the long-haired, long-bearded Dumbledore hippie dude seems friendly enough on the surface, but as the characters in the movie find out, if you get on Merlin’s bad side you’ll pay the ultimate price. No, not by his own hands, but his nifty knick-knacks will do a real number on ya! What I’m saying is that this is NOT a kid’s movie, but more of a really bad, yet deeply disturbing anthology of two horror stories stitched together as though a grandfather is telling them to his grandson as bedtime stories.

WTF? What kind of grandfather would do that? The kid in the movie is all of 6-7 years old! Ernest Borgnine, that’s who. Yeah, Old Ernie was still making movie in 1996. I’m actually ashamed to find out he was involved in this film, because I like Mr. Borgnine (MARTY, THE WILD BUNCH). I guess when you get to be that age and still love acting, your options are fairly slim. Kind of gets you pigeon-holed into playing grandpa. Anyway, the most horrifying part of this deceptively not kid-friendly movie is actually that the grandfather is telling his grandson these stories.

The production value of MERLIN’S SHOP OF MYSTICAL WONDERS is an interesting topic. It’s not good, so let’s get that out of the way. No surprise there. However, parts of the film appear to have been attempting a hybrid look, melding TALES FROM THE CRYPT with LAND OF THE LOST (the old TV show) and a dab of FRAGGLE ROCK as well. You’d have to see Merlin’s shop to understand what I mean. Actually, the movie tends to borrow quite a bit from other, more successful horror films. A few that I noticed right away were CAT’S EYE, POLTERGEIST and especially MONKEY SHINES.

As is often the case with low-budget films of this genre, fog machines are over-used and the music in this movie is so lame it almost warrants a criminal offense. However, some of the special FX in the second story are kinda cool, in a bad cult movie kind of way. You’ll seem some of them in the YouTube highlights video below, particularly the guy digging in the middle of nowhere when all Hell breaks loose.

This shouldn’t come as any shock, but the writing is atrocious as well as the acting. Borgnine’s performance is well above anyone else’s and that’s not saying a lot. Mr. Borgnine has lost a mighty chucnk of his talent in his golden years. I have to admit though, some of the dialogue is actually kind of funny because it’s so crazy, but if I had to guess, it was probably written that way. “Merlin, you bastard!” There’s a scene when a kid is playing, pretending to be a “Rock and Roll Martian” as he sings those very words… classic stuff.

One of the most poorly written little scenes (of many) occurs when the grandfather tells his grandson about how the character in his story seeks out the help of a psychic. His grandson doesn’t know what that word means, so his grandfather attempts to explain, then finally says “someone who can see into the future, talk to ghosts… you know, a clairvoyant.” His grandson responds “Oh, a clairvoyant. Why didn’t you say so?” I assume this was intended to be funny, but it just comes off as silly.

Speaking of bad dialogue, and there’s plenty of it here, one of my favorite lines in the whole movie is when Merlin goes out into the modern world (looking like Merlin) to look for the evil toy monkey that has escaped his shop. Merlin approaches an attractive young woman on the street and asks “Excuse me, but have you seen my little monkey?” I’m sorry… I know the movie sucks, but that right there is funny. I don’t care who you are!

Lowest of the Low Moments: In the first of the two stories, Satan himself appears before Jonathan Cooper, now aging rapidly and on the brink of death. Satan is having a good old belly-aching laugh at Jonathan and asks him if he believes in magic now. Why is this so bad? You’d have to actually SEE Satan in this scene to understand, but it’s ridiculous. It may sound strange to say this about Lucifer, bringer of evil, but I feel bad for the guy. If I were him, I would totally be filing a defamation law suit because this portrayal of the Lord of the Flies is nothing short of insulting. He has this big, stupid-looking grin that doesn’t move, even though he’s talking and laughing, and his little puppy-sized teeth stick up out of his jaw, making him look more like a Boston Terrier with an under-bite than the Prince of Darkness.

An added point of lowness must be made. It’s not an issue with it being poorly made, but rather that I am a pet person. Dogs and cats alike, they hold something of a soft spot on my heart. Now, I’m not saying that movies should never portray cute, cuddly pets being killed or dying, it depends on the story… but, I took issue with MERLIN’S SHOP OF MYSTICAL WONDERS because they killed a pet in BOTH of the two stories. Hey, this isn’t PET SEMETARY people! Ease up! A cat dies at the hands of Jonathan’s evil spell-tinkering hands int he first story and the family dog dies at the hands of an evil toy monkey in the second story. I would boycott the movie, but I doubt anyone would care.

Will it Ever Get Off the List: Mmm, probably not. MERLIN’S SHOP OF MYSTICAL WONDERS already sits right at the Top 25% region of the IMDB Bottom 100, so it has a good 75 spots on average to recover before it drops off the list. Add to this the fact that it’s been immortalized as a bad movie by the MST3K crew, some fans with whom I have spoke even calls it one of their favorite episodes. In most cases, that means good things for a film, but not with MST3K. This movie’s only 13 years old, compared to many of the list that are either much older or much newer, so it sits in limbo between the films that are rarely ever seen due to their age and lack of availability and the relatively new films that show up on a whim but often tend to drop off fairly quickly as people move on to other movies. Given the spotlight MST3K has placed on the film, it may find itself stuck on the list for a long time to come. After all, what’s more fun than watching really bad movies while consuming excess amounts of cheap vodka? Exactly, and we’ll always need a healthy supply of really bad movies to play while getting hammered!