Rating: 
Summary: A Forgotten Gem.
Review: TARGETS was the directorial debut of Peter Bogdanovich and was one of the last films that Boris Karloff ever made. The movie ties two seemingly separate stories together and unites them in a climax at a drive-in movie theatre. Karloff plays an aged actor famous for his roles in horror movies who decides to retire. He agrees to make one last public performance before moving back to Europe permanently. Meanwhile, Tim O'Kelly plays a psychopath who murders his wife and mother before going on a shooting rampage with a sniper rifle. It's quite intriguing how the two stories connect and are finally tied together in the end.
The movie causes one to think and is a good film to watch nowadays to consider the impact media may or may not have upon violence.There are several scenes in the film worthy of discussion, but two particularly stick out in my mind. The first one is when Karloff awakens in the morning and startles himself in the mirror. It makes me wonder how much of a success he might have had as a comedian. The second scene is when Karloff's character is discussing what to do at the drive-in as his swan song and he decides to tell a story. The story he tells is "Death Speaks" by W. Somerset Maugham. Hearing the story told by Karloff can give one the chills just by listening to it. Overall, a fine little movie worth watching.
Rating:
Summary: "Is This What I Was Afraid Of?"
Review: The DVD edition of TARGETS does more than justice to this terrific film that should be known by more viewers. Not for Karloff fans only, TARGETS is a uniquely suspensful film that combines a serial killer narrative with that of the final career stage of an aging king of horror films. What may be surprising is that it works. It works very well. Peter Bogdanovich demonstrates plenty of assurance and resourcefulness in this project that may have defeated a less adventurous director. There are no dull moments in TARGETS and the viewer continually marvels at the ingenuity of Bogdanovich, the cinematographer, and the sound technicians (this is one of the first studio-supported films that does not use a soundtrack, rather it uses source music only). Karloff is in very good form here, delivering a subtle, humorous, self-deprecating portrayal that will not soon be forgotten by anyone who sees it. It is a worthy swan song for the great horror icon. TARGETS looks downright incredible on DVD. Presented in widescreen, the nearly flawless image quality betrays almost nothing of the film's age. There is a short documentary on the making of the film, which includes portions of the trailer (which is itself not included as a supplement on the disc). The director makes many points that are repeated in the feature-length commentary. Bogdanovich's commentaries are among the better examples of their kind: he explains a lot about how shots were achieved, but he also gives plenty of credit for inspiration from older film makers--like Sam Fuller, Orson Welles, Hitchcock, John Ford, and Roger Corman--and he seems to have an endless collection of interesting anecdotes about the movie business. Don't pass up this fantastic DVD.
Rating: 
Summary: Very good film done in by political correctness
Review: The plot has already been pointed out by other posters on this film. Let me tell you some great elements. The scene where the sniper shoots those on the highway brilliant. The home scenes of the sniper's wife and family are very good too. Fine incorporation of Karloff's real life being into the fictional Byron Orlock (though Karloff, according to director Peter Bogdonavich, didn't put himself down like Orlock does). The drive in climax is also splendid. I'm not bothered by the sniper's reaction to meeting Orlock in the flesh and not beating the old guy up. He's supposed to be stunned to meet this big movie star. Lots of other great stuff too. The only way this film falls down from great to very good is the totally stupid asian secretary bit. She works for Orlock and is accepted by him as such an equal. Yeah right! And what's more she's the love interest of a very white film writer named Sammy (director Bogdonavich in an acting role). Yes, so many struggling white writers in the 1960's would love to have risked becoming morbid social outcasts by even dating someone Chinese. Real believable stuff. And just to throw salt on dumb wounds she's supposed to have gone to Oxford! Like Sidney Poitier in To Sir With Love she's a minority character way too good to be true.The commentary by Bogdonavitch is good too. Learn things like how the people at the real life gun stores used in this movie thought this was a wholesome film about a young man going hunting with his father. They knew nothing of the sniper story it really was!
Rating:
Summary: A bit more information for you film buffs out there...
Review: The story of how this film was made is almost as interesting as the film itself. Bogondavich was assigned a ridiculously short period of time by Roger Corman and a very small budget to come up with a contractual-obligation last film quickie for Karloff, with the only condition being that he had to incorporate scenes from the last two AIP Karloff films, flops that the studio was hoping to reawaken interest in. In just a few days, working on a shoestring, first-timer Bogdonavich comes up with this great, self-reflexive, funny, and disturbing film about an aging horror film star who wants to retire, because he feels his old gentle style of scaring people can't compete with modern horrors such as serial killers. This means that the "showdown" at the end of the film, where the sniper fires FROM BEHIND THE SCREEN, is not only great plotting, but thematically relevant; throughout the film, we're asked to consider our desire to watch horror movies in the first place. Anyone who really likes THINKING about cinema should love this -- it belongs on the shelf with PEEPING TOM and REAR WINDOW. It also has one of the funniest things I've seen in cinema -- a scene where Karloff catches his reflection in the mirror in an off-moment and, associating the image with years of monster movies, jumps in fear, before realizing it is only himself he's looking at... A great little movie.
Rating:
Summary: An Underestimated National Resource
Review: This film is one of i-don't-know-how-many in all that clearly reveals ther existence of a great national resource that most people aren't even aware exists -- Roger Corman! How many illustrious careers began making cheapie films for Corman? Well, Bogdanovich here, Coppola on "Dementia 13"... More recently, Joe Dante ("Gremlins") and Allan Arkush ("Rock 'n' Roll High School") and the late Paul Bartel ("Eating Raoul") have started out working for Corman. The earliest legitimate film appearances by Sylvester Stallone that i know of are in Corman films... Bogdanovich had an idea for a new kind of horror film. Corman had three days of shooting time that Boris Karloff owed him. The result is a quiet but disturbing film that circles inevitably around and around to a final confrontation. Karloff's portrayal of, essentially, himself, is wonderful; you can see the big, gentle and genuinely funny man who was behind so many of the great scary movies. ((Incidentally, while it would be nice to think of this as Karloff's "Shootist" -- a last, a final, valedictory film to perfectly end his career, as that film ended and summed up John Wayne's -- it is, unfortunately not true; he made three awful US/Mexican films after "Targets" [One of them is "The Crimson Cult", i don't remember the others]. Most Karloff fans sort of overlook those and credit this as his final "real" film...))
Rating:
Summary: Sugar, white bread, and rock n' roll: The demise of youth.
Review: This is a great modern horror film. Watch it as a "monster" film and it makes great sense. So much time was spent creating monsters from imagination. We see in this film that the monster is really us. Karloff is always the King and no matter how weird we think things are today, they've been this way before.
Rating:
Summary: chilling
Review: This is a great transfer of Peter Bogdanovich's first film as director. Tim O'Kelly is genuinely creepy as the random sniper and Boris Karloff puts in a fine performance in one of his final roles.
A great buy at a very reasonable price.
Rating:
Summary: chilling
Review: This is a great transfer of Peter Bogdanovich's first film as director. Tim O'Kelly is genuinely creepy as the random sniper and Boris Karloff puts in a fine performance in one of his final roles.
A great buy at a very reasonable price.
Rating: 
Summary: Macabre Mixture
Review: When Hermoine Gingold told Jimmy Stewart to " Drink It"!! she wasnt kidding. This is a quirky violent tale of murder and mayhem in a drive in movie. Its most bizzare to see the great Karloff sitting in that car ...at the drive in..watching...himself. As mentioned, its well mounted, acted well. and photographed by a real cinema maven. If David Lynch was making films during this period ..he would have loved this one. Look out for those Scrawny pizza rolls...and cold fries at the snack bar...not to mention Mr. Tim.
Rating:
Summary: A Cult Film Classic and a Fitting Farewell from Karloff
Review: When in 1968 Roger Corman had a few days' use of Boris Karloff and nothing on tap for him, he gave young screenwriter Peter Bogdanovich the chance to write a screenplay overnight and start directing it the next day. The unlikely, astonishing result was "Targets", a well-made film that is both a character study of aging, disillusioned horror-film star Byron Orlok (Karloff) and a cold documentary of a young man gone quietly insane who murders his family and holes up atop a petroleum storage tower by the highway and begins sniping drivers. Escaping after some time, he winds up hiding out at a drive-in theatre (remember them?) where, as it happens, Orlok is making his last appearance before retiring from acting. What happens then is what makes the two parallel themes of the film come together in a dramatic, satisfying way. Bogdanovich established his reputation with this film, which has attained deserved cult status. Boris Karloff, in his last American film role, delivers a warm, genuine, fully realized performance, almost playing himself, at his best when Orlok expresses his cynicism about the kind of work he does, when reciting the old folk tale "Death in Samarra", and in the film's last moments as he comes to a confrontation with the deranged young sniper. This is a marvelous film that in many significant ways outstripped the bigger-budget films released in the late 1960's, and is definitely worth viewing. END
| 
