Targets

Targets (1968)

Runtime: 90 minutes

Directed by: Peter Bogdanovich

Starring: Boris Karloff, Tim O’Kelly, Arthur Peterson, Bogdanovich, Nancy Hsueh

From: Paramount

"Is THAT what I was afraid of?"

My knowing of this film for many years plus it leaving the Criterion Channel at the end of the month meant that it was time for me to discover how Targets merged the parallel stories together of a Boris Karloff-like actor played by Boris Karloff in the twilight of his life and a young man randomly becoming a family annihilator… and worse.

The movie is meta without being insufferably so—as I’ll blindly presume Deadpool & Wolverine is to a person like me who has never seen a movie featuring either character and is apathetic about the genre in general. Karloff played Byron Orlok, an aging horror star of old who wants to retire as hey, the horrors of the 1960’s are much scarier than the famed movies he did in the 30’s. Meanwhile, Bobby Thompson seemed like an average anonymous Joe Doe adult male living in the San Fernando Valley. Sure, he and his dad are gun fanatics, but who could have guessed that he’d snap and…

It was quite chilling to see Targets in the summer of 2024 and realize that the movie could be remade today with little difference in terms of content—between the gun violence, senseless tragedy, mental health, and the meta commentary on Hollywood. After all, how wild was it to see footage of previous Karloff movies to portray Orlok’s time on the silver screen, or the director Peter Bogdanovich appearing as… a young director?

What a remarkable debut for Bogdanovich—it was confident, assured direction as the movie took its time and often used silence to its advantage. What a script from Peter, Polly Platt-his wife at the time-and an uncredited Samuel Fuller. However, it was Karloff in his last real role (those Mexican pictures he did that came out after his death was done when he fell ill and couldn’t even leave Los Angeles, so those shouldn’t count) that’s the true highlight. How ironic that Orlok doesn’t think he could do a serious role after years of campy parts; Boris was able to nail this serious role and it was a nice capper to a distinguished career--& arguably also a “goodbye” to Old Hollywood as New Hollywood was beginning its meteoric rise.

Targets impacted me more than expected; besides it successfully converging two different plots & in a meaningful way, its themes are still an acerbic sting to viewers in 2024. Shame on me for not… taking my shot and streaming this ages ago. Even if I hadn’t heard that Tarantino was a fan, a certain picture in his filmography would prove this.