Amazing World Of Gumball: The Complete Series (2011 - 2021/Cartoon Network/Warner DVD Set)/Furious (1984/Visual Vengeance Blu-ray*)/Invincible Eight (1971/88 Films Blu-ray/*both MVD)/Primate (2025/Paramount Blu-ray)/We Bury The Dead (2024/Vertical Entertainment Blu-ray)

Picture: C+/C/B-/B+/B+ Sound: C+/C/C+/B+/B+ Extras: D/C/C+/C+/D Main Programs: B-/B/C+/B/B

Its wacky genre time again, but we'll start with some relative levity...

The Amazing World Of Gumball: The Complete Series (2011 - 2021) collects all the many episodes of the original series, a small portion we once covered on DVD at this link:

https://fulvuedrive-in.com/review/13155/Amazing+World+Of+Gumball,+Volume+4+(2013+-+20

It does not include the later The Party release on Warner DVD also linked in that review, but that was a special kind of release, so its for completist collector's only. The 12-year-old title character, Gumball Watterson, with his goldfish Darwin among other often unique characters helped put Cartoon Network further on the map and is consistently entertaining enough for what it is. Its fine to see and has its moments, even if you do not become a big fan like this critic. Nice it is all here in a single, big and somewhat heavy package. Makes you wonder where the new shows like this one are at.

There are no extras, though some slight ones might have been on previous versions of the show on DVD.

Furious (1984) arrives on Blu-ray from Visual Vengeance for the first time. The shot on video action flick is a fun low budget romp that wears its inspirations on its sleeves. In the film a group of martial artists battle aliens for control of the universe. The film is full of creativity and has some pretty impressive choreography given its nature. There's even a scene with a talking pig that's pretty humorous. This over the top romp is definitely a memorable one and worth checking out if you are a fan of ultra low budget martial arts movies.

The film stars Simon Rhee, Arlene Montano, Howard Jackson, and Phillip Rhee.

Special Features include:

New SD master from original tape elements

Archival commentary with co-director Tim Everitt

Commentary with Justin Decloux of The Important Cinema Club and Peter Kuplowsky of the Toronto International Film Festival

High Kicking In Hollywood: Co-director Tom Sartori Interview

The Kung Fu Kid: Co-director Tim Everitt Interview

North American No-Budget Martial Arts Cinema Primer : Justin Decloux Video Essay

Rhee Brothers Career Overview : Justin Decloux Video Essay

Archival Scarecrow Video Podcast with Tim Everitt (2013)

Furious New Wave Band : Behind The Scenes Super 8 Footage

Scorched Earth Policy: Full Six Song EP (1987)

Cinema Face: Live in Concert (1986)

Tom Sartori 1980s Music Video Reel

Tom Sartori Super 8 Short Films Reel

Original Trailers

Visual Vengeance Trailer

Limited Edition Slipcase by The Dude - FIRST PRESSING ONLY

Limited Edition Throwing Star Key Tag - FIRST PRESSING ONLY

Reversible Sleeve Featuring Original VHS Art

Folded mini-poster reproduction of original Furious one sheet

2-sided insert with alternate art

and 'Stick Your Own' VHS Sticker Set.

Furious is fun if you are into low budget action flicks from yesteryear and are looking for a dose of nostalgia.

Lo Wei's The Invincible Eight (1971) follows 88 Films' releases of the earliest Golden Harvest feature films, which eventually led to a full-blown movie studio making genre classics. You can read more about their debut film, The Angry River, covered on Blu-ray at his link:

https://fulvuedrive-in.com/review/16795/Adventure+Calls!+Karl+May+At+CCC+(1964+-+1968/

More comical than Angry River without being as ridiculous as many of its 1980s counterparts, though also not as unintentionally funny, odd or even dumb as that film's use of music from the James Bond films, a group of people (the title characters) go after the evil General who killed all of their fathers. Will they get him?

It can get rather bloody and a bit graphic, but also, some of the fights are not as good as they could be and parts have either poor moments or bad editing. Sammo Hung (who makes a cameo without dialogue) was the choreographer of the fight scenes and would only improve over the years. All could have done a bit better, but it still helped build the studio and is a curio fans of the studio, genre and stars will want to see at least once. For others, once will likely be enough. Color and costumes are a plus.

Extras include an O-RING SLIP CASE WITH NEW ARTWORK BY AURELIO LORENZO

• Audio Commentary with Asian Cinema Experts Frank Djeng & Michael Worth

• Image Gallery

• Reversible sleeve with original Hong Kong poster artwork

• A poster of that art that is also double-sided

• and an Original Theatrical Trailer.

Johannes Roberts' Primate (2025) is a good example of the kind of horror movie released in the January calendar slot. It's not terrible nor particularly recommendable, but it's good enough to get its point across and earn a couple of bucks at the box office.

Following a standard slasher narrative formula, Primate centers on a hyper-intelligent, human-sized chimpanzee who is, at first, a fun and compatible family member, but quickly turns into a murdering maniac while a young girl hosts a pool party as her rich dad is out of town. The film takes place mainly in one beautiful location and features some tension-building scenes that are fairly effective. The biggest issue I have with the movie is that there are many moments where you can tell the primate is just a guy in a suit, which really took me out of it.

Primate stars Troy Kotsur, Johnny Sequoyah, Kevin McNally, Jessica Alexander, and Kae Alexander.

As of this writing, a 4K UHD release of the film has yet to be released.

Special Features include:

Audio Commentary by Director Johannes Roberts and Producer Walter Hamada

Featurettes:

Primal Terror: Directing Primate: A behind-the-scenes look at how Johannes Roberts and his team evolved a chilling original story concept into a full-blown cinematic nightmare thrill-ride.

New Blood: The Faces of Primate: Meet the fresh new talents leading Primate's cast, along with Oscar-winner Troy Kotsur, as they share their journey into the heart of horror and what it took to survive the madness.

Creating Ben: A deep dive into the physical performance and practical effects behind the chilling chimpanzee central to Primate, Ben.

and Designing Paradise: Exploring the immersive set doubling as a tropical Hawaiian villa.

Primate is fine for the type of movie it is and is entertaining in its own right, but not very original in terms of story.

I didn't expect We Bury the Dead (2024), directed by Zak Hilditch, to actually have an original idea about zombies that hasn't been done before, which I found impressive in and of itself. Especially after decades of The Walking Dead and various other dull entries in the genre that recycle elements from stronger films. Of course, you can't mention zombie movies without acknowledging George A. Romero's legacy and the impact of Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, which set a high bar for any filmmaker daring to take a swing at the undead. You can tell this film is inspired by Romero's work, but it doesn't quite reach those heights.

We Bury the Dead stars Daisy Ridley, Brenton Thwaites, Mark Coles Smith, Kym Jackson, and Matt Whelan.

Ridley delivers a very different performance here compared to her role in the Star Wars sequel trilogy and does an excellent job showcasing her range as a rising performer who has largely avoided being typecast from a galaxy far, far away, unlike some of her co-stars. From a filmmaking standpoint, We Bury the Dead is, first and foremost, very smartly made.

This is the opposite of a Paul W. S. Anderson Resident Evil movie and not nearly as overly melodramatic as The Walking Dead. Tone-wise, it feels closer to the 28 Days Later franchise, though it's unique enough to stand on its own. In short, this film deserved more love from horror fans than it received during its initial limited theatrical run, and I do think that, over time, it will become something of a cult favorite.

There is also an Umbrella Entertainment 4K release of the film available, but this review focuses on the Vertical Entertainment Blu-ray edition.

No extras on this release save Digital Copy, but the Umbrella 4K UHD release of the film in Australia does sport some extras, so you know.

We Bury The Dead took a couple years to reach US audiences, but it's a very strong and serious in tone zombie movie that I would recommend if you are a fan of the 28 Days Later franchise and more serious zombie fare.

Now for playback performance. Furious is presented in 1080p high definition on 2K Blu-ray disc with an MPEG-4 AVC codec, a widescreen aspect ratio of 1.78:1 and a lossless, English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo mix. Being a shot on VHS videotape and highly upscaled, the transfer here is nothing to write home about nor should it be. Part of the charm of this film is its low budget nature and Visual Vengeance did the best it could with what they had to work with, continuing a trend to reissue rare releases only meant for and often shot on analog videotape so everyone can see them. Nice the Super 8 footage looks as good as it does.

The 1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Invincible Eight can show the same age and limits that Angry River did, also shot with 35mm Eastman Color negative and boasting again its use of anamorphic Dyaliscope lenses we covered in the River review in brief. The sound again is Mandarin PCM 2.0 Mono that really shows its age, but no sampled Bond music this time to its advantage. A little more set-bound, it is about as good as River in both respects.

Primate is presented in 1080p high definition on regular Blu-ray disc with an MPEG-4 AVC codec, a widescreen aspect ratio of 2.39:1 and audio tracks in lossless Dolby Atmos (Dolby TrueHD 7.1 mixdown for older systems; 48kHz, 24-bit) sound. Being a major studio release, the 1080p Blu-ray looks fine and doesn't have any glaring issues that detract from the presentation.

We Bury The Dead is presented in 1080p high definition on regular Blu-ray disc with an MPEG-4 AVC codec, a widescreen aspect ratio of 2.39:1 and English soundtracks in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Stereo tracks, both 48kHz, 24-bit. The transfer on disc is clean and fine for 1080p, but lacks some of the depth and detail found in 2160p which goes without saying. The film was shot in Australia and has some beautiful locations that really capture the isolation that the characters are facing. All in all, a fine passable presentation in HD.

The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on the Gumball episodes are as colorful as ever and the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 is also just fine for the older format, but I wonder if this will make at least Blu-ray since this all does look and sound decent. We'll see.

- Nicholas Sheffo (Gumball, Invincible) and James Lockhart

https://letterboxd.com/jhl5films/