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Not a great film, but a very interesting one. I don't know of many movies that even attempt to talk about the relation between fictionalized film terror and real life horrors, but Targets tackles this difficult topic without overstating its point of view. Karloff as an aging horror actor gives one of the best performances of his career. It's also interesting to see a film with ambitions shot in "Corman time." Many of the shots appear to be single takes with actors slightly blowing their lines, camera cues almost accidental, and sets practically nil in their design. This adds to the sense of documentary that pervades the film. Use of sound is very effective and prefigures later films by people like Altman -- background voices and noise are used to great effect. PatheColor has never looked better -- its garish intensities add to the sense of a true 20th Century wasteland that can produce a casual killer like the film's smiling protagonist. Addressing issues that are more powerful today than when the film was made, Targets is a wildly ambitious take on modern life, a great coda to Karloff's career, and a vital interface between B movies and independent cinema.

Roger Corman explains in his autobiography that he handed this "spec" project to the up-and-coming Bogdanovich primarily because he could basically pay the kid peanuts. Bogdanovich understood Corman's economic sensibilities well, and cut as many corners as he could. He uses Cormans regular bit-players as well as plenty of Jack Nicholson footage from 1963's "The Terror" - another Corman B-movie. Corman's specifications for the film were simple: make a cheap film referring to the recent Charles Whitman shootings at the University of Texas, and make it fast. The script draws heavily from the real-life Whitman story; the all-American boy gone bad kills his wife and mother, and then proceeds on a killing spree, shooting anyone in his sights from a snipers nest. This story is intertwined with that of Byron Orlocks ageing horror legend nearing retirement; here Boris Karloff plays himself, for all intents and purposes. Bogdanovich plays a major role in the film himself, and there is obvious affection between the young director and Karloff in the scenes they share. Although Bogdanovich's wife Polly Platt takes a screenwriting credit, it is often said that her role was actually more of a partner in all Bogdanovich's early work, collaborating and counter-balancing his excesses. There is probably a lot of truth to this theory, as after the couple separated Bogdanovich's suffered a deep decline. I had read much of the history of `Targets' in Peter Biskind's `Easy Riders - Raging Bulls' and Corman's own `How I Made a Hundred Movies in Hollywood and Never Lost a Dime', and have been lucky enough to catch it twice on cable in the last week. It really is a very competent debut, and Bogdanovich truly makes the most of what humble resources he had at his disposal. See it.

and for the right reasons as it contrasts a Monster from the pages of real life, a quite seemingly normal fellow who unexpectedly goes off the deep end and winds up on a killing spree, with an old Horror film icon named Byron Orlock, clearly based on the man who plays him Boris Karloff himself. Karloff gives one of the finest performances of his career here and thereby raises this film's overall quality. Along with a brisk pace and some scenes that disturb and haunt the viewer long after viewing, TARGETS is a masterpiece of terror.

Horror star Byron Orlock (Boris Karloff) abruptly decides to retire from the screen while viewing the rushes of his latest horror film. He feels like he's an anachronism, a relic of a bygone era. While he's outside arguing with those who don't want him to retire, we see he's in the sights of a guy who has just bought a rifle, Bobby Thompson. At first you don't think much of it, but then Bobby opens the trunk and you can see the trunk is full of guns and ammunition.

Bobby goes home and you see that, though married and mid-20s, he still lives at home with his parents in a middle class neighborhood. There is no friction at home. From the conversation his parents seem understanding of the "nervous" troubles he's had since returning from Vietnam and readjusting to civilian life. His wife is affectionate and seems to have no problem working night shift at the phone company at a time when most women did not work. And yet amid this family support and kindness, Bobby feels inadequate and develops a desire to kill. The night before his spree starts he tries to bring up his urges to his wife. At that point he wants to be stopped. But then something in him breaks. Killing is not something he does with any malice. It's just something he feels compelled to do for reasons we are never given. He does seem to look on others as just "targets{".

So Bobby's story eventually coincides with that of Byron Orlock, who agrees to do just one more public appearance at a drive-in theater before retiring. This is where Bobby also decides to go for the final stage of his killing spree, since the police are now on to him and know his identity.

When he opens fire on the moviegoers that night from behind the movie screen, they have no idea why they are being shot and are in disbelief that something like this could be going on. Today people would immediately understand the threat because this sort of thing is much more common.

Bogdanovich got the idea for the film from the real-life sniper Charles Whitman, who killed 15 people and injured dozens more at the University of Texas in the worst mass shooting up to that time.

The whole thing is a kind of comparison of what constitutes horror in the old days when Orlock was making films versus this new modern kind of menace that Bobby Thompson poses. It came about because Bogdanovich had been pestering Roger Corman to let him direct. Corman discovered that Karloff owed him two days of work because a prior film had wrapped early; he told Bogdanovich to take 40 minutes of the earlier THE TERROR, the two days of Karloff's services, and $50,000, and to make whatever he wanted. Bogdanovich and his then-wife Louise Platt wrote the script (using very little of THE TERROR) and sent it to Karloff. It took five days to shoot Karloff's scenes, but he threw in the other three days gratis.

There are some minor questions I had - Why is Thompson constantly eating Baby Ruths and drinking Pepsis? Does he possibly have hypoglycemia, which can really mess with your ability to be rational? Why is the Thompson home a sickly green inside and out? The interior walls, the curtains, even the paper towels are this color.

One of the things I truly like and admire about Boris Karloff was that he pretty much kept on playing in the same sort of movies and played the same sort of roles, throughout his entire career. Seems to me he looked for movies and parts that suited him and more let movies adapt to him, rather than the other way around.

It's also a well kept secret Karloff actually was a pretty good actor! In this movie he definitely gets to show some of his skills and I really enjoyed him in, what later turned out to be, one of his final roles.

But really, it's not a Karloff movie and I also most certainly don't see him as the lead role in this. It's actually best to know as little as possible about this movie, since that way you shall definitely enjoy it most, just as I pretty much did. It's a movie that constantly throws you off. The one moment you think the movie is going to be about one thing but it then later turns out it's being about something totally different and unrelated!

You could see this movie as one that has two simultaneous story lines in it. Both of them are seemingly unrelated to each other but they of course come together toward its end. Not in the most convincing way and it seems a bit random all but I don't know, the randomness of it seemed to sort of suit the movie.

It's because it also has some other very random things going on in it. I'm referring to the sniper, who truly randomly picks his victims and goes on a terrible killing spree. There is something very uncomfortable and horrendous about it and I'm not even kidding when I say that this is one of the most violent movies I have ever seen, purely due to the randomness and pointlessness of all the killings! And I really mean and say this all in a positive way.

It besides all gets shot and buildup in a very effective and also realistic way. Director Peter Bogdanovich certainly did a great job handling its tension and it will put you on the edge of your seat and let you hold your breath for a few seconds.

It's really surprising how great and original this movie is! I say surprising, since this isn't exactly being a movie that is well known anywhere. It makes this a criminal underrated movie, that most definitely deserves to be seen by more!

8/10

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