Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders

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Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders is a 1996 film starring Ernest Borgnine. Despite what the title would imply, this film is more of a horror film than a child-friendly fantasy movie. In this film, Borgnine plays a grandfather telling his grandson a story about the wizard Merlin opening up a store in modern-day America. He tells him two separate stories about Merlin and the store.

This film was featured on episode 1003 of Mystery Science Theater 3000 in September of 1999, making it the last-aired episode (although episode 1013, Diabolik, was technically the final show of the series).

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The film is divided into two storylines that are framed in the form of a grandfather telling his grandson bedtime stories. In the first storyline, an obnoxious columnist examines the store, berates Merlin and his wife, and threatens to write a negative column that will cause his readers to avoid the store. Merlin gives the columnist a book of spells as proof that he actually is the legendary wizard. Once home, the columnist examines the book and casts a few spells. The magic makes him age, kills his cat, and causes him to see an image of a demon. He then attempts to make himself young again by casting a spell that involves taking his wife's blood. The spell works too well, turning the columnist into a baby. His wife then raises her (former) husband as her child. In the second storyline, a thief steals a toy monkey from Merlin's shop and sells it to a novelty store, where it is quickly bought as a present for a young boy. Every time the monkey's cymbals are struck, a nearby living thing dies. The boy's father takes the monkey and attempts to bury it, but it finds its way back into the boy's house. But before the monkey can cause any more damage, Merlin shows up and takes the toy back to his shop.

The evident dissimilarity in both the camera quality and story tone of the second act is the result of director Kenneth J. Berton editing scenes from his 1984 film, The Devil's Gift, into the Merlin story. In the original film, the boy's mother is actually possessed by the evil monkey - these scenes are not included in the Merlin version, so she simply disappears mid-way through the story with no explanation.

Additionally, the demonic monkey storyline, complete with banging cymbals, is suspiciously similar to the Stephen King short story "The Monkey", first published in 1980 (and later incorporated into King's Skeleton Crew in 1985).

Several scenes during the second story show long clips from the 1935 Ub Iwerks cartoon Balloon Land, and a short clip from The Ultraman, as the young boy watches them on TV.