Really Surprised!

Instant Favorite.

Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

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.

~Spoiler~ That quote says it all. So I'm perusing the video store in search of any horror films that I have not seen. I mean ANY. So something strikes my eye: Miami Horror. Why did it strike my eye? Because it blatantly and unapologetically ripped off the Miami Vice logo. It was such a bad rip I had to pick it up. Guess who's on the cover? David Warbeck! As if I needed another reason to rent it, the director's name was Martin Herbert, an obvious pseudonym. So I know it's Italian and I know I have to see it. The first few minutes are a prelude to an awful cinematic experience. Miami Horror not only ripped off the Miami Vice logo, they ripped off the Beverly Hills Cop score, only very terribly. And the editor must have disappeared because there are two scenes (TWO!) that are shown back to back twice in a row. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. If that's not enough, the acting is crap from everyone (even Warbeck), the story is completely random and boring, and the direction is amateurish at best. This is a long way from The Beyond for the late Mr. Warbeck. A shame too. There is a great scene where Warbeck takes out a helicopter with a pistol. I haven't seen something that awesome since Escape from the Bronx. And after all that, the Miami Horror turns out to be nothing more than the It's Alive baby. Avoid it. Don't be sucked in by the great cover art.

Unimpressive minor entry in the action/horror subcategory, take note that the "action" basically amounts to beat-to-hell old things which are already headed for a landfill being obliterated or set ablaze. As for the "horror" aspect...that would be a fetal baby with heavy mascara in a pickling jar(supposedly an alien of awesome destructive power). The blink of of nudity we're offered is of the leading lady, whose looks fall somewhere in the lesser end of average. 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 was subjected to...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 irksome celebration of stupidity.3.5/10

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?