I honestly have no clue sometimes whether people are doing reviews tongue-in-cheek. I just watched this film today (admittedly, it was on MST3K), and it was inane. The plot revolves around a boy being told a story about Merlin in "modern day California" by his grandfather. Shades of Princess Bride; the same boy is a participant in the goings-on of the tale. It seems like a series of barely related vignettes, not having much to do with Merlin at all... A "cold-hearted", ham-acting newspaper review columnist runs into Merlin's shop 'o' fun and is an unbeliever- he ends up being a magic-wielding madman... then a thief steals a cymbal playing monkey (which is, honestly, really creepy. Much like clowns.) that ends up in the hands of a suburban family. Everytime the monkey claps, something dies. Ooh. (The father stops the death of his child by sticking his hand between the cymbals before they clap, which begs the question of why he wouldn't take the monkey's arms off... he goes to a hell of a lot of trouble to bury the thing miles away.) Merlin himself plays no part in the actual "horror" events, but provides a starting point. It's pitiful watching a guy dressed as Merlin walking down city streets asking people if they've seen a clapping monkey. The "production values" are very bad- reminiscent of a TV movie. The parts of the movie where the grandfather is telling the boy the tale, and the parts with the columnist look like they were filmed at least in the mid 80's, while the parts with the monkey toy look 70-ish (much noted by the MST3K guys.) There are a few clues that much of the footage *was* done in the early 80's, at least- the little boy, when he's playing his role in the monkey clapping scenes, is wearing ET pajamas, and there's an ET poster on his wall. He's watching what appeared to be Battle of the Planets on TV. Plus, the cars are "quaint".
Keep in mind that it took this film approximately 15 years to edit to something showable before seeing the movie; I would have hated to see the work as originally designed.
Keep in mind that it took this film approximately 15 years to edit to something showable before seeing the movie; I would have hated to see the work as originally designed.