There will never be another like Boris Karloff. To have an actor playing roles in genre pictures that are generally seen to be trash, yet have his name fly so high across the globe that he ended up being billed in movies simply as “Karloff”. is incredible. Despite the reputation of horror, he was in many classics, but one of his final films was easily one of his best, the 1968 Peter Bogdanovich picture Targets.
Targets follows the character of Byron Orlok (Karloff), a famous horror actor who has decided to retire due to his impression that he and his films are seen as outdated and obsolete against modern violence, both on screen and in real life. The director of his last picture, Sammy Michaels (Bogdanovich), has written a new film that is allegedly a proper role for Orlok befitting his status, but the veteran is not interested in hearing about it.
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Meanwhile, a young man named Bobby Thompson (Tim O’Kelly) goes on a shooting spree, which he begins by murdering his wife and his mother. A true gun obsessive, something he did as a pastime with his father, he buys as many guns as he can and sets himself up on the top of a giant oil tank by the side of a highway, and from there kills several motorists with his sniper rifle. Orlok is due to make a final appearance at a local drive-in cinema where they are playing one of his classic films, and at the same time, Bobby sets himself up behind the screen at the drive-in. Will Orlok make his swan song or will Bobby steal his limelight?
Targets is a fascinating film, especially when you hear about how it was made. A young filmmaker working for Roger Corman, Bogdanovich was asked if he wanted to make a film for Corman but with some stipulations. Firstly, it needed to have around twenty minutes with Boris Karloff, as he owed Corman work, and secondly, it needed to include around twenty minutes from the 1963 Corman/Karloff flick The Terror. From there, the director just needed to include another forty minutes or so.
Bogdanovich and wife Polly Platt subsequently crafted an amazing picture from this, and Targets is fascinating. The concept of old horror coming up against new horror was prescient; the previous year had seen Arthur Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde, which was a landmark film for violence in the cinema, and 1968 saw the release of George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead, which was the herald of a new age of horror cinema that was disturbingly visceral. The violence of the sniper is also frustratingly relevant, with similar shootings happening all over America.
Karloff is fantastic in the film, and he lights up the screen. O’Kelly is excellent too, and absolutely terrifying, much in the same way as Brian Cox as Hannibal Lecktor in Michael Mann’s Manhunter. Normal, clean-cut, even banal. An all-American youth who drinks Pepsi and drives a Mustang. No gothic trappings here.
The British Film Institute have released Targets on Blu-ray with a 2K restoration from a 4K scan, which was apparently supervised by the director before he passed last year. It looks and sounds excellent, and is supplemented by a number of excellent features, including an archival audio commentary by Bogdanovich. There is also a new commentary by critic Peter Tonguette, an interview with Karloff’s daughter Sara, vintage interviews with Bogdanovich and Corman, a video essay on Karloff and the horror genre, and more.
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Targets is a terrific thriller with a brilliant central performance by Boris Karloff. The BFI have given it a fine spruce-up with some thoughtful extra features, making it a fantastic package for the discerning cinephile. Highly recommended.
Targets is out now on Blu-ray from the BFI.
