1003-Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders

Film Year:  1996 (partially 1984)
Genre:  Fantasy, Horror (?)
Director:  Kenneth J. Berton
Starring:  Ernest Borgnine, George Milan, Bunny Summers, Mark Hurtado, John Terrence, and the cast of The Devil's Gift, and boy they haven't aged a day!
MST Season:  10

The Movie

The late Ernest Borgnine (who may or may not have been the inspiration for the Borg character Seven of Nine on Star Trek:  Voyager) plays a grandfather trying to entertain his grandson when the power goes out.  He comes up with an old story he pitched to television about Merlin the Magician and his glaring incompetence.  Merlin owns a contemporary shop full of stuff that will kill normal mortals, but he puts them on display and sells them anyway.  Two tales are told; the first of an asshole newspaper critic who dislikes everything and can’t impregnate his wife fiddling around with Merlin’s magic book in an attempt to disprove Merlin’s magic.  The second, a repackage of the director’s previous film The Devil’s Gift, has a toy monkey being stolen from the store and given to a little boy, unaware that it has chiming symbols…OF DEATH.

Oddball movie with somewhat ambiguous intentions offers very little.  On one hand I somewhat suspect this could have been meant as a pitch for a Merlin television series, because the segmented movie does come off as a more whimsical take on Friday the 13th:  The Series meets Tales from the Darkside.  Though obviously the much more important intention is to re-edit The Devil’s Gift because it would save the funds for half a movie by using another movie barely anybody saw in the first place.  Still, The Devil’s Gift segment sticks out like a sore thumb.  The film stock is different, the styles are about a decade out of date, and, honestly, it just looks like it had a much higher budget.  While I’m sure it wasn’t a good movie either, it mostly makes the rest of the movie look pretty rancid.

The tone is strange, going for something whimsical while combining it with cynical horror.  However one does remember that a lot of fairy tales have somber events told in ways that make them DELIGHTFUL.  I could give Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders points for being a commentary on that, but I fear that might be giving it too much credit.  After all, this is a movie where the most evil things in the world are a critic and a toy monkey.

The Episode

Filmed as the third episode of the season, issues with the rights to the movie forced this episode to be pushed back until the end of the season.  Which kind of makes this episode the “series finale” of the original MST if you think about it.  Could be worse.  We could have ended on It Lives by Night.

“Remember to believe in magic…or I’ll kill you.”

Pretty much right off the bat the movie’s conflicting tone works toward Mike and the bots’ advantage.  Our boys aren’t afraid to go to dark places this time around, and given the film gives them nothing but magic in the name of greed, evil deeds, and dead pets galore, there’s no choice but to play it up.  For those who wish to have their magic be sunshine and rainbows, stick with My Little Pony:  Friendship is Magic.

Ernest Borgnine also comes under attack, pretty much just for being Ernest Borgnine.  And an old and out of shape one at that.  So much is made of at the expense of the gut, as well as a fart joke or two.  But considering he’s really the only name actor of the piece, you can’t really blame them for zeroing in on him.

Host segments are largely movie related and most are pretty funny.  Servo and Crow “reviewing” each other is pretty hilarious and a somewhat poignant commentary on the one-note negativity that criticism takes all too often.  I also enjoy the Ernest Borgnine children’s book collection.  The segment that stumbles the most is Servo turning Mike into a baby, which Mike plays dryly to spare himself obvious indignity, but that dryness is only moderately amusing.  Down in Castle Forrester, Pearl’s evil experiment involves giving Servo absolute power on the Satellite of Love, which results in a brief but funny dictatorship.

If it weren’t for the movie rights baloney that almost made this a lost episode, Merlin might have just been another episode in the mostly just as good if not better first half of season ten.  Knowing that we were somewhat close to not having the episode at all makes me a bit more thankful of it and helps me notice it a little more.  It was always a good episode even if you were to take its history out of the equation.

Good

The DVD

Rhino Home Video released Merlin in their Volume 5 set, to somewhat horrid results.  Audio was certainly distinct, but the black levels of the episode were so deepened that the theater seats almost disappear into the movie (and there is a video flaw or two on top of that as well).  If you screw with the contrast a bit, the episode becomes more watchable, but here’s hoping for a reissue to take this episode’s place in the near future.

The one thing making the disc a keeper is a half-hour interview with Mike Nelson and Kevin Murphy, which is probably the most in-depth history on the show feature that Rhino ever did.  Mike and Kevin discuss their history with the show and explain what made it so special for them (bear in mind this was pre-Rifftrax).  Kevin at one point makes the claim that he was amazed the fans “spent good money” on an ad to keep the show on the air.  This was pre-Kickstarter, mind you.  They also talk about the books they’ve written and tease a few “upcoming projects.”  Mike mentions working on an animated film, but couldn’t go into details.  Wonder what it was.

There is also an intro for the episode by Mike.  He mostly talks about how creepy they found the movie.

Volume 4 was later re-released by Shout Factory, and the contrast was far better.  However, the resolution seems to be lower than normal.  If the Rhino original has anything over this release it's that the image is crisper.  As to which version is preferable it really depends on which flaw pisses you off less.  However both the interview and the intro are included in this release as well.