Miami Golem

MIAMI GOLEM (1985)

Directed by: Alberto de Martino
Screenplay: Vincenzo Mannino & Gianfranco Clerici
Starring: David Warbeck, Laura Trotter & John Ireland

If you love crazy Italian films from the 1980s, then get a load of Alberto de Martino’s Miami Golem. Some crazy, and badly dubbed, scientists are cloning some alien DNA found in a crashed meteorite. Now this definitely can’t be a good thing and sure enough it isn’t, with said scientists all being killed and evil John Ireland stealing the cloned DNA so he can grow it into a supreme being that he can control and take over the world with. Enter nosy, know-it-all, complete douchebag, reporter David Warbeck who decides to investigate, pretty much taking over the experiments at one point, and teams up with alien babe Laura Trotter to defeat the very tired looking (and lost looking) John Ireland and the evil, telepathic alien foetus he has grown.

And wait till you see the completely ridiculous, but kinda creepy, foetus with its big googly eyes and its penchant for chucking our hapless heroes around in bouts of telepathic nonsense. Mental doesn’t even begin to describe this action and sci-fi mish-mash that is equal parts awesome and over-the-top entertaining and just plain boring. I know, how can an Italian sci-fi film from the 1980s shot and set in Miami, featuring an alien foetus that wants to take over the world be boring? Well, it’s the pace really as Alberto de Martino (Holocaust 2000) completely forgets to have fun, taking the whole thing deadly serious and filling his silly flick with frequent periods of not much happening. Warbeck (The Last Hunter, The Beyond) is usually good value but his character is such a douche he is more annoying than heroic: though he does get a hilarious scene where he talks to an alien version of himself who explains the entire plot.

However, this being a crazy Italian produced flick from the 1980s there is plenty of insaneness and low rent action to go around to make Miami Golem a worthwhile trash cinema ride. Of course, there is that giant animatronic foetus (which is just as lame and awesome as it sounds), completely random and off the wall dialogue (“If I didn’t hurt all over, I’d be laughing!”), the fact that the opening theme tune is a complete rip off of the Beverly Hills Cop theme, Warbeck not batting an eyelid when many of the scientists he has just worked with and seems kinda friendly with have just been gunned down (as if it is the most normal thing in the world), the bizarre scene where he records ghosts on camera who come to try to warn him of the impending doom (with one ghost just being a giant hand!!!!) and, as mentioned, that everyone takes everything so seriously.

There is bit of action here and there including Warbeck being chased by a gun firing helicopter which he manages to elude and destroy with only a handgun and only after he has boarded a school bus driven by what appears to be two drug dealers, the bus appearing out of nowhere in the middles of nowhere and the whole scene even more random and weirder than any scenes involving the giant alien foetus (!!!!!!). There is a pretty cool boat chase across the Everglades and while it’s certainly dull in parts there is no denying Miami Golem is entertaining trash cinema recommended to any connoisseur of the genre.

Bonkers.