Was this steaming pile of crap intended to be shown to children? And if so, why? To give them irreparable brain damage and nightmares? This so-called fantasy film(which is actually a horror film more frightening than some of the intentionally made horror films I've seen)is supposedly about Merlin coming into the twentieth century to open a kitchy little shop in California. With him is his annoying, shrill voiced wife Zarella(and where the hell did she come from, anyway?). The movie is supposed to be a Grandpa(meatily played by Ernest Borgnine)telling his grandchild about a script he wrote for t.v. about this shop. I think this was supposed to be something like the Princess Bride, with the exception of the fact that the Princess Bride is a good movie and this is a cut together mess full of bad acting, horrible costumes, and another early 80's piece of trash movie jammed into the middle because they apparently ran out of money.
The first story is about a loud mouthed jerk who writes for a newspaper and his barren, nearly equally shrill voiced wife. He insults Merlin, and so receives a book of magic spells. The whole thing is so that the cretinous idiot can turn himself into a baby that the woman can raise. Huh? Why the hell would she want to raise this guy, knowing what a bastard he'd turn out to be? And since the guy had been her husband, that means, technically, that she'd slept with her own son! Eewww! Of major proportions!
After destroying all of his grandson's joy and hope in the world with that first awful tale, Borgnine descends even deeper into the blackness at the heart of the world by telling the kid about an evil little monkey toy that was stolen from Meriln's shop. Here's where the cut together part begins, because the tale of the monkey toy is from another, much earlier movie. And a really bad one, at that, because who in hell would buy an eight year old a birthday present that consisted of a creepy used toy? Every time that the psychotic looking monkey clashes its symbols, something dies. Me, I vote that it should have been Borgnine for telling an impressionable child this story in the first place, but whatever.
There are some stupid in between scenes of Merlin wandering around looking like a Renn fest reject while he searches for the monkey. He eventually 'finds' it after the pasted in section comes to an end. I mean, its blatant right there because the 80's family don't notice the guy in the dress with the wool taped to his face in their living room! Then Merlin goes back to his shop with the toy, and that's it. No more tales of 'mystical wonder'. One wonders what would have been next - a tale of a little kid being shoved into a Cuisinart by a cutesy little magical bunny that he'd gotten at Merlin's shop? gah!
The first story is about a loud mouthed jerk who writes for a newspaper and his barren, nearly equally shrill voiced wife. He insults Merlin, and so receives a book of magic spells. The whole thing is so that the cretinous idiot can turn himself into a baby that the woman can raise. Huh? Why the hell would she want to raise this guy, knowing what a bastard he'd turn out to be? And since the guy had been her husband, that means, technically, that she'd slept with her own son! Eewww! Of major proportions!
After destroying all of his grandson's joy and hope in the world with that first awful tale, Borgnine descends even deeper into the blackness at the heart of the world by telling the kid about an evil little monkey toy that was stolen from Meriln's shop. Here's where the cut together part begins, because the tale of the monkey toy is from another, much earlier movie. And a really bad one, at that, because who in hell would buy an eight year old a birthday present that consisted of a creepy used toy? Every time that the psychotic looking monkey clashes its symbols, something dies. Me, I vote that it should have been Borgnine for telling an impressionable child this story in the first place, but whatever.
There are some stupid in between scenes of Merlin wandering around looking like a Renn fest reject while he searches for the monkey. He eventually 'finds' it after the pasted in section comes to an end. I mean, its blatant right there because the 80's family don't notice the guy in the dress with the wool taped to his face in their living room! Then Merlin goes back to his shop with the toy, and that's it. No more tales of 'mystical wonder'. One wonders what would have been next - a tale of a little kid being shoved into a Cuisinart by a cutesy little magical bunny that he'd gotten at Merlin's shop? gah!