This week in Physical Specimens, our biweekly round-up of new physical media and 4K reviews, we assess new 4K UHD releases of the most lucrative screenplay of 1994, a brutal giallo from the early ’70s, and two cult Australian reissues from Arrow Video.
The Long Kiss Goodnight
There’s one single reason I had never watched The Long Kiss Goodnight before Arrow’s new 4K release: because, when I was a freshman in college, in the screenwriting program at a major East Coast film school, my adviser would not shut the hell up about how much money Shane Black got paid to write it. I thought his job was to help me learn how to write screenplays, but apparently he thought his job was exclusively to explain the business side of things in the vaguest and least helpful way possible; I heard the words “single screen credit” more in those nine months than I have in the rest of my years combined. Black, the writer of Lethal Weapon and The Last Boy Scout, got a cool four million—in 1994 bucks—for his script about an amnesiac suburban mom who was actually a CIA super-spy, and director Renny Harlin—fresh off one of the most catastrophic flops ever, Cutthorat Island, which dealt a killing blow to beleagured studio Carolco—turned it into a cult favorite action film starring his then-wife Geena Davis. It wasn’t a big hit at the time, but guess what: it’s totally okay! Almost fine, even.
Black has gone on to better work, starting with his directorial debut, 2005’s Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, but his signature mix of comedy and violence was already in full effect by The Long Kiss Goodnight. Early scenes where Davis’s slowly returning memories start to wreak havoc in her mundane daily life are an effectively funny example of the “normal person does abnormal things” trope, and Samuel L. Jackson, already in his late 40s but still early in his career as a legitimate movie star, brings dignity, intelligence, and, yes, humor to what could’ve been a thankless sidekick role. Bryan Cox, meanwhile, is immediately fantastic as one of his typically imperious, pretentious, blowhard assholes, only this time on the side of the angels as Davis’s old handler.
The Long Kiss Goodnight is quick and quippy and legitimately good at both—a Black hallmark—but the most impressive thing about it is how it basically predicts every single post-9/11 conspiracy theory, five years early. The 1993 World Trade Center bombing leading to an inevitable follow-up attack? America’s political establishment using that follow-up as justification for invasions of unrelated Middle Eastern countries, pitching crass corporate concerns as pure patriotism? Black almost seems like a prophet today.
There are flaws. It’s a little too long, the action—generally excellent and genuinely thrilling early on—becomes overbearing in the way most action movies since the ‘90s do, and Craig Bierko just doesn’t have the juice as Davis’s main rival. This isn’t a classic, but it’s a better-than-average action flick from the era when action flicks started to become too overwrought and grandiose. And Davis is a true star in it; it’s a shame she didn’t headline a string of breezy action movies after this one—and an absolute indictment of Hollywood’s bullshit that the only movies she made in the 13 years after this were the Stuart Little trilogy. (Yes, there were somehow three of them.) If you dig Black’s later movies, which include Iron Man 3 and the impeccable The Nice Guys, or want to see Davis and Jackson at their peak, seek this one out.
The Long Kiss Goodnight Original Release: 1996 Director: Renny Harlin Format: 4K UHD Label: Arrow Video Release Date: April 8, 2025
I am not even remotely ashamed to admit that I am a hardcore Donald Duck guy. I’m talking got his face on my wallet levels of buy-in on that one. So when Donald’s iconic visage pops up near the end of Lucio Fulci’s gory, depressing, horror-adjacent thriller about murdered kids in early ‘70s Italy, my attitude went from sincere, if muted, critical appreciation of the film to an all-out, thoroughly confused fascination. And that drove me to an utterly amazing discovery: this brutal movie, in which multiple children are murdered in terrible ways, and in which a fully nude adult woman tries to seduce a 12-year-old, was originally known in English under the title Don’t Torture Donald Duck. The Italian title is Non si sevizia un paperino, and “paperino,” which is the diminutive for duck, is also the official Italian name of the Disney character who gets stuck with all the bad luck.
The road to the movie’s decapitation of that Donald Duck toy is a tortured one, so let’s skip it. It’s truly irrelevant. Fulci’s colorful giallo is set in a small village beset by a string of child murders. Suspects include a local simpleton, a cosmopolitan libertine with a known drug problem, and a woman driven mad by the death of her baby. There’s also a very friendly, very helpful, very handsome Catholic priest who happens to be the soccer coach of every victim… Duckling has a fervent disbelief in the wisdom of the crowd, a resolute skepticism of the church and all other institutions, and ultimately lands on the side of big-city interlopers over small-town traditionalists, at least when it comes to properly cracking the case of serial child murders. It’s the kind of movie where a crowd of locals slowly and grotesquely beats a cleared suspect to death with chains while multiple songs play on the radio. It’s deeply cynical and often hard to watch, but Fulci’s exquisite eye and Arrow’s new 4K restoration (in Dolby Vision and HDR10, where it’s compatible) makes it perversely beautiful when it isn’t at its most soul-rendingly depressing. If you’re just starting to explore the world of Italian horror, make this one of your first watches.
Don’t Torture a Duckling Original Release: 1981 Director: Lucio Fulci Format: 4K UHD Label: Arrow Video Release Date: March 25, 2025
Thirst
Harlequin
Powerhouse looks to Australia for the latest releases in its deluxe Indicator series, which bundles new 4K restorations of upper tier genre films with a bevy of supplements and bound booklets full of on-set photos and essays and interviews (both new and old). 1979’s Thirst (directed by Rod Hardy, who also gave us the ‘90s Nick Fury TV movie starring David Hasslehoff) is the better of the two; a conspiracy-minded horror film steeped in the legend of Countess Bathory, it starts off as a visually striking and legitimately prescient parody of the upper class. It totally predicts the fucked up world we live in today, where unfathomably rich tech weirdos like Bryan Johnson use blood transfusions from teenagers to try and feel young again. Thirst is more explicitly vampiric, though, with its secret society of the world’s elite donning steel-fanged dentures to directly suck the blood out of their victim’s necks. David Hemmings and Chantal Contouri play the conflicted scientist behind the whole scheme and their thoroughly modern target, respectively, while instantly recognizable American character actor Henry Silva and deliciously venal Australian Shirley Cameron play the most memorable villains. If The Brotherhood, the movie’s shadowy group of cannibalistic billionaires, actually existed, they’d probably be the focus of fawning media profiles in every media outlet, just like Johnson and his ilk. Thirst runs out of steam well before the end—its funniest, most clever moments come in the first hour—but it’s just smart and unique enough to merit a watch. And Powerhouse’s new 4K edition is the best way to do that.
Powerhouse dropped another Aussie number the same day as Thirst, one that also stars Blowup icon Hemmings. Harlequin is a bizarre supernatural thriller that aims to update the real-life mystique of Rasputin for the modern era (or at least the modern era of 1980). Robert Powell plays a mysterious, potentially otherworldly magician (a role apparently written for David Bowie, who passed) who ingratiates himself into the house of a politician poised to become the next leader of a country that’s clearly Australia but also never officially recognized as such within the movie. He seemingly cures Hemmings’ son of leukemia, seduces Hemmings’ wife, and tries to convince Hemmings of the fundamental crookedness of the system and the political power brokers who rule it from behind the shadows. There are some tremendous scenes here, and seeing Powell plainly state that the kind of political disasters our leaders ignore and lie about today are how they maintain their power is genuinely empowering during an era when America seems on the cusp of full-blown fascism. It’s just too ridiculous to be all that effective, though; Powell’s boringly serious character pretty clearly possesses magical powers, which undermines almost every open-ended scene he’s in before that realization—scenes that make you question whether his harlequin is special or just using physical effects. Simon Wincer’s movie is visually striking but dramatically undernourished, and ultimately a silly little diversion that wants to seem daring and important due to its vague, noncommittal condemnations of the powers that be.
Thirst Original Release: 1979 Director: Rod Hardy Format: 4K UHD Label: Powerhouse Films Release Date: March 18, 2025
Harlequin Original Release: 1980 Director: Simon Wincer Format: 4K UHD Label: Powerhouse Films Release Date: March 18, 2025
Notable Upcoming 4K Releases
April 8, 2025 The Long Kiss Goodnight, 1996, Arrow Video Some Like It Hot, 1959, Criterion Sorority House Massacre, 1986, Shout Factory
April 15, 2025 Batman Ninja, 2018, Warner Bros. Batman Ninja vs. Yakuza League, 2025, Warner Bros. Chungking Express, 1994, Criterion Donovan’s Reef, 1963, Kino Lorber The Good German, 2006, Steven Soderbergh, Warner Bros. The Informant!, 2009, Steven Soderbergh, Warner Bros. Sands of Iwo Jima, 1949, Kino Lorber Sonic the Hedgehog 3, 2024, Paramount
April 22, 2025 Career Opportunities, 1991, Kino Lorber Demolition Man, 1993, Arrow Video Foul Play, 1978, Kino Lorber The Hunt, 2020, Shout Factory Jean de Florette / Manon of the Spring, 1986, Criterion Sneakers, 1992, Kino Lorber Tombstone, 1993, Disney / Buena Vista
April 29, 2025 Anora, 2024, Criterion Basquiat, 1996, Criterion The Beyond, 1981, Grindhouse Dirty Harry, 1971, Warner Bros. Drop Zone, 1994, Cinematographe Gandhi, 1982, Sony Last Tango in Paris, 1972, Distribpix Lethal Weapon, 1987, Warner Bros. Mad Foxes, 1981, Cauldron Films Motorpsycho!, 1965, Severin Murder Rock, 1984, Vinegar Syndrome The Nesting, 1981, Vinegar Syndrome Night Train Murders, 1975, Severin The Outlaw Josey Wales, 1976, Warner Bros. Pale Rider, 1985, Warner Bros. Plane, 2023, Lionsgate Pokémon: Detective Pikachu, 2019, Warner Bros. Shanks, 1974, Cinematographe Short Night of Glass Dolls, 1971, Celluloid Dreams Star Trek: Section 31, 2025, Paramount Stripes, 1981, Sony Suddenly in the Dark, 1981, Terror Vision Swept Away, 1974, RaroVideo Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead, 1995, Kino Lorber Timecop, 1994, Shout Factory Up!, 1976, Severin Who Killed Teddy Bear?, 1965, Cinematographe
Senior editor Garrett Martin writes about videogames, TV, travel, theme parks, wrestling, music, and more. You can also find him on Blue Sky.
