Zoom Up: Murder Site — Zoom Up: Murder Site( Blu Ray)

Zoom Up: Murder Site is a pink film, that blends nasty roughie action with intense Giallo like kills. This late 1970’s film certainly has its moments of shock/ unpleasantness, but unfortunately, the surrounding storyline/ characters leave a lot to be desired- meaning at points this just over hour-long film feels twice that length. Here on Impulse Pictures is a region one release of the film.

Zoom Up: Murder Site( aka Zoom Up: Rape Site, Zûmu appu: Bôkô genba ) was made in the year 1979. It was directed by Toyko born Kôyû Ohara- who had fifty-one credits to his name, with many of these falling in the pink genre, with titles like Japan's Pleasure District: Three Sisters at a Turkish Bath, Fairy in a Cage(what a title!), Female Convict 101: Sucks, I Love It from Behind!( again, what a title!). Zoom Up: Murder Site was his twenty-sixth film, so you’d expect a fairly polished/ balanced production- and yes the sleaze/ nasty-ness is filmed well enough(though at points a tad dark), but the characters are rather bland/ forgettable, and the acting is decidedly mixed. Sure you don’t expect Shakespeare in the pink genre, but you need the character you can semi relate to, and largely they are not here.
 
The film kicks straight into a Gallio like kill, as we see the black-gloved and white flip-flop(I kid you not!) wearing killer knocking down a young woman, as she gets off a late-night train. He throws her in the back of his car, ties her arms and legs- starts to rub her with white lotion, then pulls out a big black plastic dildo and starts rubbing her uncovered skin- this scene has a fevered unpleasantness, and it’s topped off with him inserting a light blud/ or small bottle inside her then crush it, before dragging her away- so a nasty start. But there are issues…it’s all filmed very darkly, and even after pushing my contrast all the way up, it’s still difficult to make out what is going on. This issue is corrected as we move into bright daytime credits which features blood-red texts, we get a haunting shot of the dead woman breast uncovered dumped on a vacant lot- with a great unbalancing soundtrack that mixes warbling & wailing sax, and distorted muzak. Fairly soon we meet our two leads- the wife of a businessman, and her daughter's tutor- he’s trying to get it on with her, and she threatens to scream if he continues. The pair walk to the station and the tutor leads her to the vacant lot where the opening kill took place- they make their way into an abandoned factory on the lot, and he rapes her- though after they are chatting in a relaxed manner. They are just about to get it on again when they hear voices, they panic/ hide. And watch a middle-aged man and a woman start making love- she says he’s been too gentle and enjoys been choked he starts doing this, finishes himself then realises he’s killed her, he panics drops the body down a hole in the floor, and runs off. So the wife and the tutor think they have found the cities serial killer, and for much of the remainder of the film they debate back and forth whether or whether not they should inform the police. Around this we get consensual/non-consensual roughie softcore, one or two more darkly filmed, but nasty Giallo kills, a sudden/ bizarre dream sequence involving a woman in a powder blue top in a very pink room and flashes of bloody man-sized birth, and more rather inane batter between the tutor and his rather annoying girlfriend.
 
On paper Zoom Up: Murder Site comes off something like a Japanese take on The New York Ripper or Strip Nude For Your Killer, but in reality, it’s a very unevenly paced film- with moments of shock/ intensity followed by lots of bland banter and uninteresting character interaction- so as a result, it does often feel like a trial to get through. The sleaze/ nastiness is done well( aside from the lighting issues), but then we have the remaining 65% of the film that feels like a trudge- so as a result, I was more than a little disappointed by Zoom Up: Murder Site.
 
Moving onto this recent(ish) region one blu ray, and sadly we get extras, but we do get a high definition scan. This largely looks very good, with the daylight scene colour crisp and clear, unfortunately, as mentioned the darker/night-time scenes are often very murky/ unclear. Lastly, the release features a reversible colour cover, with the two different English title on.
 
When we got this in for review, I was looking forward to checking it out- as I of course enjoy Giallo, and have recently been getting more and more into the pink genre- so a blend of the two sounded like a perfect fit. Sadly, the reality of Zoom Up: Murder Site is that it’s a decidedly uneven film, where the balance is weighted too much towards bland character interaction, and not enough on the sleaze/ nastiness