Targets (1968)

Lack of good storyline.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Targets is a pointless but engaging thriller, that is a mixed mess.So the film started off in another film and I had no idea what film I was watching or what it was about, so that was pretty cool. Every review raves about Karloff, I'm suppose to care who that is am I? I know he was in "Frankenstein". Anyway, he was fine, though the bit at the end where he walks up to the killer and slaps him is laughable. So Bobby says to his wife "You don't think I can do anything do you" and that is all we learn about why he goes off killing people. Byron says "Nobody cares about a painted monster anymore" and points to his newspaper about a shooting, when there is real horror out there. There are two separate stories and then the two come together in a silly conclusion. One with depth that is uneventful and the other eventful without any depth, you put the two together and you get? I don't know, an unwritten character that takes up half the screen-time. It's not a great film nor is it a bad film, it was fine.

Peter Bogdanovich scored his first critical success with Targets that starred an elderly Boris Karloff playing an elderly star of Gothic horror films hardly a stretch for the man's talents. In fact a whole lot like William Henry Pratt in real life. Karloff is telling the producer of his next film that this is it, despite verbal commitments he wants to retire. He's not reaching the newer generation he fears and his films are called camp. Time to just quit.Peter Bogdanovich who also plays the writer of that project that he's turning his back on urges Karloff to reconsider as does Nancy Hsueh Karloff's girl Friday and Bogdanovich's girl friend. He does however have a personal appearance at a drive-in showing one of his films.But while Karloff is musing about retiring, a very disturbed young man has built himself quite an arsenal. One fine day Tim O'Kelly a veteran of Vietnam who has built himself quite an arsenal decides just matter of factly to go on a human shooting spree. He kills his wife and then mows down a few more on the Freeway and then sets himself up at the drive-in to await the night's events.O'Kelly is a frightening young man and this film sadly set a trend for making Vietnam veterans psychotic villains on screen. It lasted for over a decade. No doubt O'Kelly learned his weapon skill for combat, but lots more veterans came home without going psychotic. In any event O'Kelly's baby face and All American looks are what makes his performance all the more frightening.As for Karloff this was ironically his last film away from the horror genre. When he died the following year he had about four posthumous films awaiting release. Talk about dying with your boots on. In real life the farthest thing from his mind was retiring. The film is set up for the inevitable meeting between the old master of the horror film genre and a purveyor of some true life horror. It's worth the wait to see what happens.

Karloff plays an aging icon of the older style horror films of the less graphic, more spooky variety, which has seemingly been rendered obsolete, and, literally under assault, in the film, and unable to frighten or be possessed of any meaning, when contrasted, as the film does, against the more topical horrors of the day typified by a Charles Whitman type, Vietnam vet, who snaps, and turns his sniper training to good use, inflicting terror on the community via a string of r long range killings, against random victims; an an Ed Wood, Lugosi vibe is present in the depiction of a up and coming director, played by Peter Bogdanovich playing Himself,at the time, pretty much, as a film fan doing hackwork, He was, at the time, shooting B-pictures for Roger Corman.

Elderly horror-film star (Boris Karloff) who, while making a personal appearance at a drive-in theater, confronts a psychotic Vietnam veteran (Tim O'Kelly) who has turned into a mass-murdering sniper.This film was written, produced and directed by Peter Bogdanovich under the direction of mentor Roger Corman. For whatever reason, Corman had the film use an excessive amount of clips from "The Terror", but somehow it still works (and is better than the film it references).American International Pictures offered to release, but Bogdanovich wisely wanted to try and see if the film could get a deal with a major studio. It was seen by Robert Evans of Paramount who bought it for $150,000, giving Corman an instant profit on the movie before it was even released. This was brilliant and gives the film a sense of legitimacy that AIP simply cannot offer.