Miami Golem

A humanoid fetus, cloned from DNA found in a meteorite and nurtured in a petri dish, is stolen from a scientific institute by industrialist John Ireland. Somehow, he will use it to control the world's financial markets. Beings from "ancient Atlantis" recruit a cynical TV reporter (David Warbeck) to recapture it. Warbeck joins forces with alien Laura Trotti (a.k.a. Laura Trotter) to infiltrate Ireland's laboratory fortress and steal the creature.

Except for shots of a disintegrating animal carcass, Sergio Stivaletti's special effects are laughable. The golem fetus looks like a slimy peanut at first, and later resembles Yoda's demented brother. Warbeck deserves a pat on the back for enduring the script, which calls for him to shoot down a helicopter using a teeny pistol and say stuff like, "It's not every day that I get to meet somebody from outer space."

This budget-starved Italian action/sci-fi hybrid features David Warbeck as a Miami reporter who is chosen by the ghosts of the people of Atlantis (!) to stop an evil businessman (Academy Award nominee John Ireland) from using a telepathic fetus grown using spores from an asteroid to rule the world. You got all that? Despite such a loopy plot, this is actually quite a bore and the RAIDERS OF ATLANTIS sneers at it with contempt. Honestly, the most (intentionally) creative thing about this flick is the slight reworking of Herbie Hancock's BEVERLY HILLS COP theme for the opening titles. The most unintentionally creative bit involves a scene in a lab that is inexplicably shown twice back-to-back. Perhaps director Alberto De Martino wanted to get all avant garde on us in the twilight of his career? I was going to declare this Ireland's worst film on his resume but then I saw SATAN'S CHEERLEADERS was listed on there. I would also like to safely declare that I am probably the only person in the history of the world to do a double feature of this and Hitchcock's VERTIGO.

A reporter, Craig Milford, who works for The James Keller Public Telecommunication Center, has an interview with a German professor of a Floridian university, who made an unknown creature based upon some substance of meteor(s). But then a man named Anderson, who is trying to control the whole planet with the creature, and his man kill the professor and his assistants and plunder the creature. So Craig and his new female psychic partner, Joanna Fitzgerald, who can communicate not only with human being but also with alien friend(s) of the creature, begin to find the creature and try to send it to an alien spaceship... This film has some great casts and staffs. For instance, it has the actor, David Warbeck of THE BEYOND, the actress, Laura Trotter of NIGHTMARE CITY, the special visual effects creator, Sergio Stivaletti of Dario Argento's masterpieces, and the director (and also the story- writer), Alberto De Martino of THE MAN WITH ICY EYES and THE KILLER IS ON THE PHONE. And these talented people make an incredibly bad film, named, nothing but this MIAMI GOLEM which is essentially a confusedly combined film of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND with E.T.THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL. And this not-only-confused-but-also-crammed film has something worth; genetic engineering with psychical research. Consequently the film has at least one scientific and/or technical flaw; genetic engineering and psychical research are never compatible. (Strangely enough, regarding this strangely childish combination of genetic engineering and psychical research, the leading character, Craig, himself says THERE MUST BE A BETTER EXPLANATION to the short-haired psychic, Joanna. But, after all, the whole story of the film doesn't and can't present any kind of BETTER EXPLANATION.) In addition, this film has something more laughable; its problematic music. What the composer, who is credited as Robert Marry, provides is nothing but the strangely insistent BEVERLY-HILLS-COP-tasted music. I don't want to say this Italianised theme of BEVERLY HILLS COP per se is particularly bad music, but I have to say it seems to be manifestly clear the music does not have the fitness for this film per se at all. Indeed just who can think BEVERLY HILLS COP has the compatibility with genetic engineering and/or psychical research?

Unimpressive import in the action/horror subgenre. Take note that the "action" is of the exploding car and airboat variety typical of 80s testosteroni and cheese flicks. As for the "horror"...that would be a fetal baby with heavy mascara in a pickling jar, supposedly a reality-bending alien who's extracted DNA sample is of great interest to the criminal underworld. The blink of of nudity we're offered is of the leading lady...her rack is pretty smokin', but she's otherwise at the ass-end of average, with a butch lesbian haircut.

In one especially hilarious and unbelievable drop-of-the-ball, there's a lengthy scene which twice-consecutively repeats itself for absolutely no reason at all. The most easily-detectable flub imaginable actually made it through the post-production stage of this floundering hunk-o'-junk, unless it happens to be a blooper specific to the particular video release I endured...in any case, it's a mind-blowing gaffe.

Another impotent selection from the late David Warbeck's woefully disconsonant filmography. He was a fine actor sadly choked in weak material, and his presence signifies the sole point of distinction in this torpid little bootless errand.

3.5/10. Awesome title, at any rate.

My review was written in April 1988 after watching the film on Twin Tower video cassette.

Previously titled "Cosmos Killer" and "Miami Golem", "Miami Horror" is the belated video release of a 1985 Italian horror pic. Disappointing treatment wastes an interesting sci-fi plot line, further done in by bad dubbing.

British thesp David Warbeck plays a tv reporter, reminiscent of Edward Judd in the classic "The Day the Earth Caught Fire", who's covering the story of scientists studying the origins of life by cloning bacteria from meteorites. Gangsters led by John Ireland steal the bacterial culture, which they plan to develop into a superhuman, alien being.

Script injects equal parts sci-fi and mysticism, as Warbeck is befriended by pretty Laura Trotter, who links a weird message he has received to Martians, Atlantis and the ancient Etruscans. Ultimately she concludes that we're being warned by folks from a different dimension of another universe to cool it with these dangerous genetic experiments. The culture develops into a fetus and then a monster baby (nice special effects by Sergio Stivaletti) called a golem. Disappointing ending features a spaceship as well.

Pic doesn't hold together; it needed a few more rewrites and a bigger budget. There is some okay location footage in Florida but not enough special effects.