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39 out of 47 people found the following review useful:
Bullseye!, 31 October 2004
Author: BaronBl00d (baronbl00d@aol.com) from NC

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Peter Bogdanovich's premier film is a thorough examination of changing societal values through the lives of two very different men. One, a young married man brought up in a household where shooting was emphasized and encouraged, having problems mentally(brain tumor if very like person it is based on). The other, an aging horror screen veteran tired of the campy nature his films have taken on and the fact that his kind of horror is no longer scary, retires from a life long profession feeling he is an outdated, antiquated relic of the past. Both stories are shot separately and then craftily interwoven at the end. The young man kills his family and then sets out to kill as many people as he can on the water tower on a highway and then at a drive-in. Those scenes are frighteningly real and so topical in our days now. This film is a first-rate job by Bogdanovich who uses lots of violence very effectively. I jumped several times, and I was shocked several times at art mirroring reality. But despite the taught thriller aspects of this film, the film ultimately is a triumph for an aging Karloff basically giving us one of his few candid performances playing someone very much like himself. Karloff was to die in a couple years, wore two leg braces, and had a host of physical problems, yet he is a trooper giving one of his better performances with virtually no camp at all. I sat wondering if any of the dialogue was how he really felt: that his films were camp(I don't think so at all!) or that he had lost the ability to scare. Certainly what filled newspapers then and even more so now was scarier than anything a movie could do. Karloff gives a great performance, and I like how Bogdanovich tied the two plot strands together at the end. On a final note:

the use of the drive-in was great. Boy, I miss em!

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39 out of 47 people found the following review useful:
Bogdanovich's first film amazing, 23 January 2004
Author: tostinati from United States

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.

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43 out of 55 people found the following review useful:
As close to "A" as a "B-Movie" can get., 7 August 2002
Author: cpetro1 from Melbourne, Australia

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.

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25 out of 33 people found the following review useful:
A disturbing film..., 25 August 2003

Author: Space_Mafune from Newfoundland, Canada

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.

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27 out of 39 people found the following review useful:
The last great film of Boris Karloff (?), 16 June 2005

Author: The_Void from Beverley Hills, England

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.

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17 out of 24 people found the following review useful:
Corman's best production, 5 November 2002

Author: funkyfry from Oakland CA

One of the best low budget films I have ever seen. Film within a film revolves around Karloff as the aging horror film star and Peter Bogdanovich as the young director who must convince him to be in his next movie -- or there may be no movie. Add one psychotic sniper and it's all good fun and really pretty scary (thinking about it now, it seems pretty topical, sadly). The sniper never really offers an explanation or speechifies -- it's way more naturalistic and scary that way. A first rate thriller..... 10 out of 10. Should please Karloff fans and those just looking for a good thrill ride.

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13 out of 20 people found the following review useful:
Way ahead of its time . . ., 20 January 2001

Author: austex23 from Austin, Texas

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.

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12 out of 19 people found the following review useful:
Intriguing, if not entirely successful, B-movie stew..., 19 September 2006

Author: moonspinner55 from redlands, ca

Very strange thriller from director Peter Bogdanovich (who, at this early stage, was a green, hungry, raw new talent in need of both self-control and focus). Bogdanovich (who also appears in a small role) attempts to correlate the stories of two disparate characters: an ex-soldier turned sniper and a retiring horror-movie actor (Boris Karloff) about to make his final publicity appearance at a drive-in movie theater. Why these two men should ever cross paths is apparently the key ingredient to what intrigued Bogdanovich to this type of material (the irony of it, and so forth), but he fails to make clear what the violent journey has meant in the end, or exactly how Karloff can bring clarity to the mind of this mad-dog killer. The director seems to be struggling to make a point about the effects of movie-fantasy vs. real-life alienation, but since this hasn't been much of an issue for two-thirds of the picture's length, the climactic events are muddled and not all that satisfying. Surely there are some coldly shrewd observations made here (most often visually, without dialogue), displaying Bogdanovich's wildly imaginative director's eye and a skill for storytelling through imagery (he also gets a world of help from his gifted cinematographer, Laszlo Kovacs). Unfortunately, the rudimentary aspects of the reedy plot are clumsily presented, and the movie gets off to such a heavy-handed start that one is never sure whether the tone is meant to be satirical, farcical or suspenseful. As a low-budget, early effort, the film definitely shows promise; seen today, we are able to gauge just how much growth was necessary on Bogdanovich's part--and how much ground he did indeed cover in just a few short years. ** from ****

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12 out of 19 people found the following review useful:
Blew me away...no pun intended., 27 July 2006

Author: Raegan Butcher from Rain City, Pacific Northwest

I had been reading about this movie for thirty years and after renting it from the incomparable MOVIE MADNESS I can only say I wish I had seen it sooner. It really stands out as an exceptional example of low-budget exploitation cinema. Peter Bogdanavich shows an amazing sense of pace and control in his first film. I will be buying this excellent DVD with the hilarious and fascinating commentary by the director; he is an amusingly droll fellow and if any of his other films contain commentaries as lively and enjoyable as TARGETS then i am going to be the first in line to rent DAISY MILLER. Just kidding. But that doesn't make me any less impressed with TARGETS. It truly is a first rate thriller that still has a remarkable power. This is one of the very first "modern" psycho films. Bravo to Bogdanovich and company for this one. Very well done.

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9 out of 15 people found the following review useful:
Good movie hampered by bad acting, 15 September 2006

Author: Don1980 from United States

For his first time out, Peter Bogdanovich does a very respectable job here. His camera-work is pretty unobtrusive in the first part of the film, but he becomes more confident as the film progresses, and there are some memorably well made scenes (particularly once the violence begins).

The story itself is slightly uneven; it is nice the way the parallel stories come together at the end, but it feels slightly contrived, and not completely necessary.

The biggest thing holding this movie down, in my opinion, is the acting. Very mediocre to poor acting all around. Boris Karloff does the best turn, but he's obviously in such bad health that the poor guy can only give half an attempt. The rest of the cast is B or C grade (including, interestingly, Bogdanovich -- the man can direct, but he sure can't act, at least not in this movie).

Overall a worthwhile effort, and worth seeing to witness the early development of Bogdanovich's style, but definitely not a classic.

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