Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders

Oh for shame Ernest Borgnine. Merlin's Shop of Mystical Wonders is perhaps, at best, borderline in what I'd consider a film. The film, is actually two short stories "told" by Borgnine, to his "grandkid."

The first short story is about a arrogant critic that, skeptical about Merlin's "newly open" shop in the middle of Los Angles, is given a book of spells. Knowing that the critic is an asshole, Merlin's realizes that the guy will abuse his new found power. For about 20 minutes of the film, we see the guy try new spells, boring the viewer half to death.

When the guy starts to look like Alastair Sim (from the best version of 'A Christmas Carol'), we, along with him, realize that he's aging due to magic. The story comes to a silly conclusion when he figures out a way to reverse the spell.

The film itself calls out it's simplistic storytelling with Borgnine's "grandkid" who easily explains that the foreshadowing that appears earlier in the story would be clear enough to an idiot.

The second story, about a devil monkey toy is equally silly, especially since the original film it's from was clearly filmed in the 70s.

The film, without the assistance of MST3k, is nearly unwatchable.

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