Les nouvelles aventures de Merlin l'enchanteur

Films don't get any cheaper than this stitched together piece of padding, in which retired screenwriter/grandpa Ernest Borgnine relates "sweet" bedtime stories about the legendary Merlin (Yes, that Merlin. Merlin probably changed management after doing this movie) to his world-weary, seven year old grandson. Grandpa Borgnine's sweet, folksy, suitable for children tales are chock full of horrible death, crying children, murdered house pets, and abusive husbands, plus a fun cameo by Satan himself!

The makers of this film probably didn't realize that their kiddy movie wasn't kid-like at all- because the bulk of the "stories" are footage from some other mid-to-late seventies movie about a killer monkey toy. Despite all the ugliness in these segments, there is a charming moment where a young boy happily sings "Rock and Roll Martian" to the stuffed monkey. This is probably the best scene in the whole, feature length movie.

The other story segment, the one with the bickering, self-hating couple who can't conceive (kids love those kinds of stories!) has all the style and substance of an episode of "Monsters".

This movie is filled to the brim by horrible acting, atrocious dialog, and some of the most laughable editing since Ed Wood's legendary day/night/day scenes.

So don't hesitate to watch this movie.... if it comes on the late, great Mystery Science Theater 3000. Otherwise, you've been warned! ROCK AND ROLL MARTIAN!!

Ernest Borgnine is a great storyteller. I think the boy suffered from random epileptic seizures after this film was made.

This is awful. Merlin has decided to join the business world and has opened his shop of yore. Run by him and Mrs. Merlin, they first must deal with a cynical critic who threatens to ruin the shop's business. Good old Merlin gives him a book of evil wizardry. After fire breathing, cat from hell, levitating, and so on, the critic learns that this film has aged him (he's not alone).

The second half is a rip-off of the monkey's paw, except in this case it's a duracell running monkey toy with cymbals. Ha ha. Of course, someone buys it as a present for a little boy and that's when the fun starts. One of the only saving moments is when Merlin goes around asking, "Have you seen my monkey?" Hee hee, that one always works!

Merlin's gift shop.....to be avoided at all costs.

Wow! I question as to why this was made into a movie instead of a terrible anthology TV pilot. Along with being bad, this is just truly bizarre. It starts off with a burning building, which turns out to be a little kid watching TV. I guess the television program he's watching may foreshadow later events, but it's still pointless. The kid's Grandpa (Ernest Borgnine) tells him to turn that trash off, only to tell him a couple of strange horror stories to put him to sleep.

Before the first story really starts, we are introduced to Merlin and his wife who now own a shop to bring magic to the world. Merlin ends up giving a book of spells to a jerk who's wife can't have a baby, but wants one. This guy ends up dabbling in the spells and doing some crazy stuff, including spitting out fire at the cat. Then there's a really dumb twist ending that I'm not going to give away. This segment was really strange, mainly because the first 15 minutes of it was Merlin, then it switches to a short 15 minute story. Also, by the rationale of this segment, Merlin gets his power from Satan. The second segment is better than this one...and the second one was terrible.

A dad ends up giving his boy a stolen wind up monkey with symbols toy for his birthday. This doll claps the symbols together and bad things happen. To stop the bad things, all you have to do is put your finger in between the symbols, so it really isn't a very effective killer. The dad finds out the toy is evil somehow when his dog dies in a fire, which leads him to ask a psychic for help. Meanwhile Merlin walks the streets searching for info on where the evil toy he has for some reason, may be. The plot all leads to the dad trying to dispose of the doll before it hurts anyone, but when plans fail, will his family be fine? Who cares. This story is a big rip-off of two Twilight Zone episodes, "Living Doll" and "It's a Good Life", and even though they were made 30 something years earlier, they were much scarier and more believable.

Along with these two stories sidetracked by Merlin and his wife's wacky antics, we have this dumb wraparound. The wraparound is stupid and pointless, but even more pointless is the title character, Merlin. There was no need to have Merlin in this. It would've been slightly better if they put in 3 stories and cut out the stupid old wizard and his cantankerous wife. Plus the music in the film I'm pretty sure is stolen from various films, including "the Pagemaster". In the end, this is a very bad and bizarre film. Adults will feel it's too violent and profane for little kids, older kids won't like it, and little kids will be too scared. For my final thought, I know this review sounds like a big complaint, and it really is. Let's hope the movie studios learned from their mistakes.

My rating: BOMB/****. 85 mins. Contains some violence, language and some mildly sexual innuendos.

"Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders" is too dark to be a children's movie and too cute to be a horror flick. Which makes it perfect "Mystery Science Theater 3000" fodder! An incompetent mixture of "Poltergeist" and any wizard movie, it makes one wonder how they got a great actor like Ernest Borgnine on board. Although the movie has 1996 as its date, a large portion of it looks as though it was filmed at least ten years earlier (a very corny '80s look).

As for the "MST3K" version, jokes naturally abound. I don't remember which jeers came from Mike, Servo or Crow, but someone notes that Merlin probably shouldn't ask women if they've seen his monkey! And when the ground starts caving in, one of them declares that Bugs Bunny must have missed that left turn at Albuquerque! Among the famous people who get mentioned are Tom Bosley, Madeline Albright, Bella Abzug and Linda Blair. So just stick with the "MST3K" version and you'll be fine.

Yeah, she did look kinda like Julie Hagerty.

This "movie" seems to be little more than several different movies patched together. And in a sense, it is. Things start out with some old lady at an ouiji board whose house catches fire. Then after about six minutes, it turns out this is just some TV show some kid is watching while his grandfather (Ernest Borgnine in what may be the lowest point of his career since "The Devil's Rain") sits on a couch nearby. When the power in the house goes out Grandpa Borgnine proceeds to tell the kid some fractured and disturbing story loosely connected to Merlin the Magician, who has transported himself to the present day and opened a shop. Despite being the title character, Merlin does little in the movie except release evil artifacts into the world and collect them later while getting nagged by his irritating wife (If that's what she is. Their relationship is never really made clear in the movie).

The first part of this fractured story involves a cranky newspaper reviewer who is unimpressed with Merlin's shop and threatens Merlin with a most vicious review. Merlin retaliates by giving him a book of spells which turns the obnoxious reviewer into an old man and then a baby. Merlin's revenge, I guess.

The second tale involves an evil toy monkey who gets stolen from Merlin's shop and ends up being bought by a family from the early 1980's. The monkey has the ability to cause untold damage and evil by clapping the little cymbals in its hands. This segment was actually a 20 minute excerpt from a movie from 1984 called "The Devil's Gift" which was then clumsily inserted into this film. This is why this particular tale has no setup or conclusion, making the movie even more confusing than it already was. "The Devil's Gift" is apparently out of print and hopefully they won't use the MST3K exposure as an excuse to reissue it.

Along the way, a goldfish dies, a cat is burned alive, a trapped dog dies after inhaling toxic smoke from a fire set in the garage and a woman has a rather frank conversation with her friend about her fertilization problems which has left her unable for her and her cranky husband to have a baby. And this is supposed to be a kid's film! This is either the darkest kids film ever or the most ineffective horror film ever. If you really want to give the kids nightmares, show them this movie before sending them to bed.

This movie will most likely be remembered as the "lost" episode of MST3K. The airing of this particular episode was delayed five months because of rights problems with the movie. After watching this movie, I have to wonder why any sane person would actually want the rights to this stinkburger in the first place! Just another painful reminder of how much we'll miss MST3K.