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Here are the entries that were added in March:

BACTERIUM
	(2006) writ & dir: Brett Piper; w/ Alison Whitney, Benjamin Kanes, Miya Sagara, Chuck McMahon. Tidbit o' skin; tad o' gore. A germ warfare experiment gets a little out of hand -- now it's grown into really BIG germs that eat people! Okay, they rip The Blob but confine the action to an old house and a handful of victims. It has some fun effects, and the plot moves along nicely; however, the shoestring budget, a lot of crappy acting, and the general goofiness of the script leave this as nothing more than a momentary diversion. It's pleasant enough, but there's nothing to really commend about it.

BAD REPUTATION
	(2005) writ & dir: Jim Hemphill; w/ Angelique Hennessy, Jerad Anderson, Danielle Noble, Chris Basler. No skin; no gore (... no skin!? In a Rape & Revenge flick... what the hell?) The shy girl from a bad home is the victim of date rape by the guys and a smear campaign by the girls; so naturally she turns into a seductive tramp to lure dickheads to their deaths. An ancient formula that should be reliable, but although the script is decent, it has a droning pace more appropriate to a lullaby. The cast is spotty, the sound & photography are bad, and what should be the showcase scenes -- the laying and slaying -- are really quite humdrum. I'm not sure exactly what they may have been shooting for, but they scored a bullseye on mediocrity. No reason at all to waste time on this one.

GIRL BOSS GUERILLA
	(1972 - Japan) dir: Norifumi Suzuki; w/ Miki Sugimoto, Naomi Oka, Chie Kobayashi, Reiko Ike. Some skin; no gore. The new boss of bosses of the Kyoto girl gangs has her hands full fighting rivals, blackmailing priests, enforcing harsh discipline -- and all while trying to stay out of the Yakuza's way. But then the Yakuza push her just a smidgen too far. The plot is some topsy-turvy nonsense – but who can tell with all that bitch-slapping, belly-bumping, and tattooed nipples going on. It's quite a lot of fun, but they really found all the kitchen sinks in Japan to throw into this one -- they have softcore porn, silly catfights, sophomoric humor, brutal sadistic bondage and torture... they even toss in a couple of slow romantic ballads -- ye gods.

HERCULES IN THE HAUNTED WORLD
	(1961 - Italy - aka Hercules at the Center of the Earth; Hercules versus the Vampires) dir: Mario Bava & Franco Prosperi; w/ Reg Park, Christopher Lee, Leonora Ruffo. Herc and his pal, Theseus, have to battle through Hades itself to find the pretty rock that will save the wilting princess from the sneering usurper -- see divine love triangles, Greek zombies, witless comic relief, and even herculean tree pruning. With Bava at the helm, this certainly has some of the best photography and art direction of any sword & sandal flick. The script is every bit as brainless, however, and the Herc-gimmicks lack variety -- but it's far from boring as our heroes face an endless string of nonsensical obstacles and absurd plot twists. Even folks who aren't a fan of the genre can have fun with this one.

JUST BEFORE DAWN
	(1981) dir: Jeff Lieberman; w/ Chris Lemmon, Gregg Henry, Deborah Benson, (George Kennedy bit). Teensy bit o' skin; mild gore. Young folks in the woods become the target of the local inbred nutcookie with a machete. Although graced with better values and a more original ending than the average drivel in this category, this is still only marginally above average. It gets bonus points for gorgeous locations and good photography, but is dragged down by a plot so badly contrived that it begs for instant amnesia from the audience, and characters so fantastically stupid that killing them amounts to a service to the gene pool. Fun enough to watch if you like this sort of thing, but it does require you to hammer your brain into a very small hole.

the MANSION OF MADNESS
	(1973 - Mexico - aka Dr. Tarr's Torture Dungeon; Dr. Tarr's Pit of Horrors; Dr. Goudron's System) dir: Juan Lopez Moctezuma; w/ Claudio Brook, Arthur Hansel, Ellen Sherman, Martin LaSalle. Tidbit o' skin; no gore. Those silly reporters will never learn -- yet another journalist gets trapped in an asylum where the keepers are loonier than the patients. With some daffy humor, a dash of Poe, and a whole lot of delightfully bizarre visuals, it is fun to watch. The plot makes only a brief cameo appearance, but there's more than enough unrestrained silliness on hand to keep everyone entertained, and good photography and art direction gives it a surrealist gloss it doesn't actually deserve. More of a circus sideshow than an actual movie, it can be fun trip for when you're tired of all that 'reality' nonsense.

MEGAFORCE 7.9
	(1980 – Japan – aka Earthquake 7.9; Death Quake; Jishin Retto) dir: Kenjiro Omori; w/ Hiroshi Katsuno, Toshiyuki Nagashima, Yumi Takigawa. No skin; no gore. A renegade young scientist predicts a big quake for Tokyo -- the authorities ignore him and his colleagues and family reject him. Now break for half an hour to set up the messiest of love polygons. Then all hell breaks loose and Tokyo goes through the grinder. The effects are good, and there are a few gutsy scenes of panic and death, and then we follow a couple of small groups trying to survive the aftermath. It's actually a decent flick, but probably much better in Japanese, as the English dubbing is just dismal. But if you can put up with the soap opera interlude (and the dimwitted dialog), it's a fun little disaster flick.

the PHANTOM (1943)
	(1943 – serial in 15 chapters) dir: B. Reeves Eason; w/ Tom Tyler, Jeanne Bates. This masked white guy rules over the tribes of the African jungle -- because of course no native African has an IQ higher than a toddler's. The dotty professor tries to find the lost city, when suddenly bad men try to stop him, when suddenly more bad men try to stop both of them, when suddenly the darn Mongols show up for no good reason. This is mildly fun to watch in a "quaint old serial" kind of way; but it's also completely unremarkable. It's a purely off-the-shelf production that looks to have been cranked out by some tired old men who were just sick to death of cranking out serials. The so-called natives are played by white guys in bad "injun" wigs from some western flick, the hero has all the verve of cottage cheese, and the story is wrapped up so abruptly you'll miss it if you sneeze. It is well enough made (within genre expectations) and moderately enjoyable, but quite unlikely to stick in your memory.

PUMPKINHEAD (3): Ashes to Ashes
	(2006) writ & dir: Jake West; w/ Doug Bradley, Doug Roberts, Tess Panzer, Lisa McAllister, (Lance Henriksen cameo). No skin; some gore. When the townsfolk find out a crooked coroner has been butchering and dumping the remains of their kin, they conjure up ol' Punkin to do their dirty work... and wind up a lot closer to damnation than they had hoped. This one ties in a bit with the first flick, and actually manages to be a worthy sequel. A good script, great photography, some good performances, and even a dash of originality make it quite an enjoyable view. You have to cut them the usual slack for trying to make Romania look like the U.S., but it scores better on that than many flicks which make the attempt. The down side may be that it doesn't bring anything new to the franchise, but it's still a decent little flick.

SHADOW: DEAD RIOT
	(2006) dir: Derek Wan; w/ Tony Todd, Carla Greene, Nina Hodoruk. Some skin; some gore; some of everything. It's the tough gal in the slammer versus the undead serial killer guy... but first we get a chicks-in-chains flick complete with shower scene and lesbo lust; wait, now it's a kung fu flick -- or a Reanimator rip-off -- and then we have Zombies! Woops, now they toss in a killer baby -- how thoughtful. Whee hah, it's a genre-mangling circus done on a low budget but with a hell of a lot of talent; a butt-stompin', boobie-squeezin', throat-rippin' good time. It's only weakness, I think, is a disappointingly ordinary ending -- other than that, it's a gas. Fair warning dept.: This may be a minority opinion; quite a lot of folk seem to hate this flick. Perhaps they were actually taking it seriously... or expecting it to to fulfill some formula or other; but I consider it a virtue that this gem so freely violates our expectations. Bravo.