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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.

Where to begin singing the praises of this little gem that I just saw for the first time recently?

It establishes itself permanently in my good graces as a viewer because, by default, it provides a near documentary look, what with its plentiful use of location shooting, of Southern California circa 1967. It captures, more strikingly than any film I know, the texture of a particular time. The cars, the clothes, the signs, the drive in, the suburban houses speak subliminal volumes; it is nothing short of a neural map of a time.

This is Bogdanovich's first full directorial effort. (He had shot part of Wild Angels for Corman a while before, and Corman was impressed enough with his work there to offer him his own feature. These details and more are related in the excellent Bogdanovich commentary track that, amazingly, is included on the new "budget" DVD.) To secure the assignment, he had to agree to incorporate 20 minutes of footage from the Corman cheapie The Terror (or that was the plan at the outset) and shoot an additional new 20 minutes, or two days, with Boris Karloff. Throw in 40 minutes of your own storyline invention, and voila, instant New Drive In Movie, Roger Corman style. The project eventually grew beyond that. (The final tally: $125,000 by Bogdanovich's recollection, with $25,000 of that going to Karloff for 5 days shooting. Bogdanovich's first script killed off Karloff half way through to accommodate the budget and schedule. Sam Fuller, it was, who advised him strongly to ignore all that stuff if the story demanded more than 2 days with Karloff.)

Targets feels like a European film of its time. This says to me, above all, that Bogdanovich wanted to make certain he was making a modern film, his own film, and not an easy pastiche/homage to the American directors he had enshrined in writing before becoming a director himself-- Ford, Hawks, Hitchcock, Welles et al. I would almost call the narrative voice he assumes here passive. The absence of a film score adds to this feeling. But it is not semi-documentary; there is nothing even remotely Dragnet about Targets. It is spare, clean, modern, lacking in embellishment or decoration, but the people speak naturally, move fluidly and seem real. And there is a stillness, again a feeling enhanced by the lack of music, that creates verisimilitude, but also a general sense of unease.

The story of Targets is based on the case of Charles Whitman, the young man who climbed a tower in Texas in 1966 and staged a sniping siege on pedestrians and motorists below. An editor at Esquire had suggested this as a great film topic to Bogdanovich when he was writing some film criticism for them. Bogdanovich and his wife at the time, Polly Platt, based their first scenario on this news story, and got a major script doctor assist from director Samuel Fuller (The Big Red One; Shock Corridor, Pickup on South Street).

One of the most interesting things the new DVD commentary track points out is the number of times Bogdanovich achieved remarkable long take tracking shots. I missed them on first viewing; they are so discreetly handled that even a die-hard film fan and geek may be unaware of them. Too often, this is the sort of shot that calls a lot of attention to itself, as a flamboyant statement of the director's mastery for its own sake. It would have been easy for a first-time director to get snared in flashy games-playing. But instead, these takes are slipped seamlessly into the weave of the story, enhancing the everyday feel, the naturalism of Targets. (The best long take scene-- and one of the most telling scenes in the movie-- begins with a couple of minutes of the family sitting in the darkened living room watching The Joey Bishop Show on TV; Mom and Dad beg early work tomorrow and head off to bed; the young couple go down the hall to the bedroom, where the wife dresses for work; then we go back to the living room where Bobby sits alone for a bit watching TV. All without a cut. It is a charged, still few minutes in which Bobby makes his one and only sad little bid to talk out his inner turmoil with the person to whom he is closest.)

This doesn't even get into the touching and amusing Karloff subplot, about an old horror star resignedly coming to terms with his obsolescence. He says his type of horror can't match the horror of the modern world, and as proof he holds out a newspaper with a headline about a teenager shooting six people in a local grocery.

Small budget films do not get any better than this. --Neither do most large budget, these days. 10 stars. See it.

In the DVD introduction to this film, writer/director/actor Peter Bogdanovich explains how it happened. B-movie mogul Roger Corman came to Peter in late 1967 with a proposal: take 40 minutes of footage from Corman's film "The Terror", film 20 minutes of Boris Karloff (who owed Corman 2 days of work), film 40 minutes of other stuff with other actors to tie it all together, and complete a feature film all for a budget of $125,000.

You'd think this would be a recipe for a colossal turd of a movie, but on the contrary, it pushed everyone's creativity to the max and resulted in a remarkable work of cinema.

Peter & his wife grabbed their typewriters and wrote a modern horror story contrasted against a classic Victorian horror. Assisted by Peter's friend & successful writer/director Samuel Fuller (not credited), they churned out a profound & poetic script loosely based on the news story of Charles Whitman, a former marine sniper who went on a mass shooting rampage the year before. A bit was also inspired by the Highway 101 sniper shootings in which a 16-year-old boy killed 3 motorists in 1965. That's the "modern horror" part. The Victorian horror comes with the character Byron Orlock (played by Karloff) who is a classic horror icon at the end of his career, realizing that his brand of horror is outdated.

If you can see where this is going, you're in for a great experience. Yes, it's a story of change, out with the old & in with the new, but in a chilling way I've never seen before. The idea that fear has evolved into something far different. Ghost stories & creepy characters no longer cut it. The new brand of terror is faceless, anonymous, soulless and random. Enter the phenomenon of the mass killer.

"Targets" was ahead of its time, and Peter even mentions how its release was delayed because studio execs were afraid of how its message would be received, especially with the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and Bobby Kennedy just months prior to release.

It is extremely relevant today, and even if it weren't so artistically done & expertly acted, I would recommend this film for its message alone. The directing, cinematography & acting is icing on the cake, and oh what icing it is! If you're like me, you probably know Boris Karloff as the lumbering creature in "Frankenstein" (1931)... a big, stiff lunk in electricians boots who drags himself around as if he's murderously constipated. Here in "Targets" he is eloquent, charming, tragic, comic and instantly worthy of our attention. My favorite scene is in a hotel room when he tells a ghost story. Director Bogdanovich is very respectful with his camera work in that scene: it opens wide and fixes itself on Karloff with its (and our) undivided attention as it slowly narrows on Karloff's face. No cuts, no jumps, no distractions, just pure Karloff.

The movie is full of thoughtful camera work like that. As you watch the film you get the idea that every camera angle, movement, pan & zoom, and every shadow and inch of background action was very carefully planned to the millimeter. I confess I've never seen a Bodanovich film, but I know he's a very respected director. Now I see why. On a tiny budget that, today, wouldn't cover the catering for a big studio film, he cranked out a magnificent film.

I would put "Targets" squarely in the class of Hitchcock, as compelling as my favorites "Rope", "Rear Window", "Vertigo" and so on. But as I mentioned earlier, it's the blending of Victorian horror (Hitchcock, Vincent Price, etc) with modern horror (Fox News, etc) that makes this an unforgettable show.

Just an epilogue to the story of how the film was made... Although prints caught the attention of major studios, it wasn't officially released until it caught the eye of a film professor who invited Paramount execs to a screening in his classroom. Paramount bought the film for $150,000 (netting Corman a whopping $25,000 profit... hope he didn't blow it all in 1 night!). The film was eventually released, and it received rave reviews from critics but never did well with the public at large. Way ahead of its time. Lucky for us it survived onto DVD 40 years later when perhaps the world will understand it better. Don't hesitate for one minute to see this film if you have the chance!

Peter Bogdanovich is a man that, to me, is too intelligent to make a film without anything to say. With that in mind, however; if Targets does have a point to it, it is masked well. The only thing resembling any kind of comment is that the film professes the differences between screen horror and real life horror, but even this idea is put forward in a muddled way. That being said, however; Targets is a world away from being a bad film. The film marks one of the last performances for the great Boris Karloff, and serves as a nice swansong to his career, especially as he's almost sending himself up in this film. The great man plays Byran Orlock; an aging horror film actor who has decided that he wants to retire. However, things are not as simple as that as, on the same day that Orlock is due to make his final public appearance at the screening of last movie (Roger Corman's 'The Terror'), there's a serial killer on the loose who's taking pot shots at people with a sniper rifle. As real life horror and screen horror icon clash...who will be the resulting victor?

Despite the point being rather muddled, Targets makes up for that with the exciting way that the plot plays out and the stream of tributes and comments on Karloff's (sorry, Orlock's) career. It's nice to see Karloff enjoying himself, and the introspective nature of the movie ensures that he gets the chance to do this. Peter Bogdanovich is well known for being a director who is also a fan of cinema, and this movie also gives him a chance to tribute the medium that he evidently loves. As a fan of cinema myself, it always makes me happy to see this sort of thing, and that marks another reason for my enjoyment of this movie. The way that the plot plays out makes the movie predictable, but in a way that adds to the idea of 'real horror', as we can see what's going to come; it's like a car crash - it's obvious what's going to happen, yet all we can do is just sit back and watch. On the whole, this is a classy thriller and while it never hammers home it's point enough to ensure that you know it's actually got a point, it works because of it's tension and well paced plot. This will also be a must see movie for fans of the great Boris Karloff.

Ageing horror actor Byron Orlock (Boris Karloff) has just finished what will be his final film. The campy nature of the horror films he stars in, and the decline in moral society leads him to believe that horror films are no longer scary, especially when compared with what is happening in the real world. Young director Sammy Michaels (Peter Bogdanovich) has just written a great script especially for Orlock, and tries to persuade him to re-think his retirement plans on the build-up to Orlock's final public appearance at a drive-in for his new movie The Terror. Meanwhile, suburban husband and gun-obsessive Bobby Thompson (Tim O'Kelly) is planning a massacre using his sniper rifle, starting with his wife and family.

As usual when it comes to Roger Corman productions, the story behind the film is just as interesting (often more so) as the film itself. Karloff apparently owed Corman a couple of days work, so he was handed to Corman protégé Peter Bogdanovich, and told him to make whatever film he liked - as long as it was cheap, quick, included footage of his film The Terror (1963), and drew on the recent Charles Whitman killings. So, with the help of screenwriter Samuel Fuller, Bogdanovich crafted an intelligent, shocking, and extremely interesting film that what way ahead of its time.

Targets is many things. On one hand it is a warm love-letter to the legendary actors of old. In one scene, Michaels enters Orlock's hotel room, them both being drunk, and watch the end of Howard Hawks' The Criminal Code (1931), which starred a younger Boris Karloff. They briefly discuss the genius of Hawks and Michaels comments on what a fine screen presence Orlock (really Karloff) was, and still is. It is also a first-rate thriller. Tim O'Kelly is very effective as the clean-cut, all-American boy, who is becoming increasingly shaken about the person he finds himself becoming. In real-life, Whitman was found to have an aggressive brain tumour that was believed to be the cause of the sudden killing spree. The violence, though not gratuitous or exploitative, is shocking and nasty. The murder scenes are shot with a slow and detailed precision that are scary given the real-life occurrences.

Most interestingly, the film is a commentary on the generation gap, in both society and in cinema. Michaels states that "all the great films have already been made." Of course, this is not true - America was about to enter its true golden age, when the likes of Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Dennis Hopper, Francis Ford Coppola, Michael Cimino, and Bogdanovich himself shook Hollywood to its core. But Michaels is reflecting Orlock's fear of the new. Orlock is retiring because "it's a young person's world," and he feels he no longer has his place. The film builds up to the inevitable meeting of Orlock and Thompson - the old vs. the new, if you will.

Targets is quite hard to sum up. It is genuinely a hidden gem, and a true original that should be seen by anyone interested in cinema. Karloff would sadly pass away a year after this film was released, and he gives what is possibly his finest career performance. He has no scary make-up or sets to drown him out. He is simply an old man, walking stick and all. Although he made a couple more films after this, Targets seems his true and fitting exit from cinema. This is close to an 'A'-movie that I've seen a B-movie get, and again proves that Roger Corman was a true cinema genius.

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