This movie starts with a random scene from somewhere, which turns out to be a movie that a little boy is watching, suddenly the power goes out so the boys grandpa decides to entertain the kid by telling a story (which is based on one of grandpa's old screen plays). The story is about Merlin opening up a shop of "mystical wonders" in a modern city, and how items from that shop affect the lives of people buying them. So we have something like a triple layer framing device (four layers if you see the MST3K version). Which just goes to show how much of this movie is unnecessary filler, and how much is actual story.The story's themselves are supposed to be somewhat scary, in a child friendly way, but they lack suspense and are far too slow paced to be either scary or funny. The acting is not horrible, but not good either, the dialog is likewise pretty bland but not worse than that of any other mediocre children's movie. Special effects are pretty plastic-y, but not laughably so. To put it shortly, the general look and feel of the whole film is just that little it sub par. Combined with the less than exciting story's and the rather pointless framing device, this movie ends up being thoroughly "meh".

I was writing this correct an earlier user comment. The part with the toy monkey and symbols is actually a rip off of a Steven King short story. I think it was Four Past Midnight or Skeleton Crew. Since this has to be ten lines, the guy who steals Merlin's spell book comes off as a huge jack off. Every time things go bad for him it's actually hilarious. Earnest Borgnine ends up looking like a crazy old man. Whats he trying to do give his grandson mental problems. The kid is like six and he sits still quietly for two hours while his out there grandfather tells him some cockamamie wild story. Worst movie premise ever. The only times I've ever actually was the Mystery Science Theater Three Thousand version which is very funny. As a side note if your actually going to watch this movie do not do it sober. You will turn it off after five minutes.

This film isn't anywhere near as bad as people say it is. It's poor and Ernest Borgnine is obviously reading from an autocue for the whole thing, but it held my sons attention. His actual summation was that it was "scary and rubbish". Thats actually true (apart from the scary part). It IS entertaining and the first story about the scoffing reporter undone by Merlins spell book is purposely amusing. The second story is just an excuse for pet-death and is probably a bit too creepy for young folk. Think of it as a scrap-book of kinder-horror, except instead of cuttings you have used toilet-paper and instead of glue, vomit.

It's hard to classify this atrocity. It's not really a fantasy, it's not very dramatic, and it most certainly isn't a family film. However, it is the type of film that's just begging to be torn to shreds on "Mystery Science Theater 3000", and fortunately, the folks at Best Brains turned this dog into Experiment 1003.Ernest Borgnine reaches the lowest point of his career as the narrator of a soul-scarring television movie he apparently wrote years ago. Now, keep in mind that he's telling this to his young grandson (who's still sharp enough to pick out a couple of plot holes). Apparently, Merlin decided that he wasn't moving enough merchandise in the Dark Ages, so he packed up and moved to 1996, setting up "shop" in an unidentified city. Entertaining a kid who suffers from bouts of slow-motion, Merlin is approached by an uppity reviewer for the local paper who sports a superiority complex and a wife who he hates for not being able to get pregnant (again, this story's being told to a kid). So the guy takes Merlin's magic book of spells and plans to demolish it with a strongly-worded review, but only ends up turning his cat into a ruthless hellbeast, then proceeds to light the animal on fire (again, there's an eight-year-old listening to this story). The guy ages a hundred years, rips off Humphrey Bogart, then turns into a baby, much to his wife's delight. So somehow, he's his own father.And now for something completely different. One of Merlin's most demonic possessions, a cymbal-clanging toy monkey (I always knew those things were evil) ends up being bought by a family from 1984. The young son, sporting googly-eye glasses and happily singing about the Rock and Roll Martian, is blissfully unaware that every time the monkey clanks its little cymbals (in the hopes that somebody somewhere is playing "The 1812 Overture"), some living thing in the house snuffs it. It starts when the dad notices that all the houseplants are dead (another issue - since when does a man notice a plant in the house?). Then an exploding lightbulb and an unattended pan of motor oil results in the fiery death of the family dog (remember, the little kid's still listening to this). With advice from his homicidal psychic friend, the dad tries everything he can to eradicate the plastic simian, if "everything" involves knocking it into a paper bag with a vacuum cleaner. But no, evil always finds a way, and the monkey keeps making it back to the 1980s. Merlin spends much of his time back in 1996 walking the streets, asking women if they've seen his little monkey.It amazes me that someone on the production crew watched the final product and said "Hey, that's good, let's release it." If this was intended for the family market, then all parties concerned failed miserably, as the story flips back and forth between mundane and terrifying. But it offers a thousand good chances for being made fun of, and Michael J. Nelson and crew took those chances eagerly. Thank God.