Beverly Art Center is embracing the “it’s so bad it’s good” vibe for its Dec. 13 screening of a not-quite-classic film, “Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders.”
More Top Picks Best Audio Cables
The BACinema comedy team NERD Mob will give the film the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment, with comedians on stage during the screening to sling the sarcasm and highlight the humor in this 1996 B-movie. This is the third film BACinema has screened with the NERD Mob.
“We bring in movies I would dare say are historically bad,” said BAC film coordinator Jonathan Moeller. “Comedians open things up — energize the audience.” Throughout the movie, the comedians riff on the film and encourage audience members to join in the fun. The concept is based on the Mystery Science Theater 3000 television show, which featured a man named Joel who was trapped by evil scientists and forced to watch awful movies with his robot companions. Their wisecracking commentary throughout the movies helped Joel keep his sanity — and keep the home-viewing audience laughing.
Moeller said that he and NERD Mob comedians — Colleen O’Connor, Emily Nelson, Tim Stompanato, and Conor Strandquist — researched films that are “known to be pretty ridiculous.”
When they saw “Merlin,” Moeller said, “the jokes started flowing. We knew we had to do this. You’ll be able to see the problems with this movie from the beginning.”
In “Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders,” Merlin the wizard and his store tie together two creepy stories centered on magical items gone wrong. A misused spell book leaves a nasty columnist in a bind. A toy cymbal-playing monkey has lethal power. The overarching narrator is a grandfather, played by Ernest Borgnine, telling stories to his grandson on a stormy night. Needless to say, this is not the role for which Borgnine won an Oscar.
The 1996 movie is not rated. Moeller suggests parents do a little online research to determine whether their kids would be OK with the scary parts of the film, but the event isn’t meant to be adults-only.
“It’s a lot of fun. You have to come with a bit of an open mind,” Moeller said. The first film they showed was “Night of the Living Dead,” which was a good draw, but is “actually a pretty good movie,” he said. The second was the 1962 cult film “The Brain That Wouldn’t Die,” the tale of a doctor who kept his decapitated girlfriend’s head alive.
“(‘The Brain That Wouldn’t Die’) was a very bad movie, and it was a great event, and the audience had a lot of fun,” Moeller said.
Paige Fumo Fox is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.
‘Merlin’s Shop of Mystical Wonders’
When: 7:30 p.m. Dec. 13
Where: Beverly Arts Center Baffes Theater, 2407 W. 111th St., Chicago
Tickets: $6 ($5 for members) available online or at the door. Concessions and full bar available.