Film Review: 'Targets' Directed by Peter Bogdanovich

Targets is a 1968 suspense thriller by Peter Bogdanovich. The novice film maker received funding from producer Roger Corman. Corman gave Bogdanovich two conditions: that he could use stock footage from The Terror (a Corman film from 1963) and he could use actor Boris Karloff for two days. Bogdanovich eventually wrote a script that wove all these stipulations together in the form of a film symbolically comparing two horrors. The first horror is the career of Byron Orlok (Karloff) who is a retiring horror star, and the second is the life of a man named Bobby Thompson (Tim O'Kelly) who is a serial sniper. The achievement of this film considering its limitations is astonishing. Without understanding the background of the film, however, it could easily be interpreted as very flawed.

Bogdanovich took his limited budget and two days with Boris Karloff and turned it into a story that was more appropriate for the time than Bogdanovich could have anticipated. When the film was released, there was a recent sniper named Charles Whitman who had gone on a shooting spree just a couple years before. The topic was so sensitive that even after Paramount had agreed to buy the film, they were hesitant about releasing it. In Targets, Byron Orlok is an old actor who is finally ready to retire, much to the dismay of the studio and director Sammy Michaels (played by Bogdanovich). Orlok is finally realizing that what is portrayed on screen by his performances is no scare compared to the tragic shooting of innocent people in his time. Convinced the next generation is ready to take over, he decides to step down from his career, but not until after one final appearance at a drive-in theater for his fans. It is here that the stories of Bobby and Byron meet. Bobby has just been on a killing rampage that began that morning with the murder of his wife and his mother and then a highway sniping. Now, Bobby has retreated into the drive-in where he sets up behind the movie screen and shoots people watching The Terror. When Orlok realizes what is happening, he spots Bobby from across the parking lot and walks straight in his direction. As Orlok nears Bobby, Bobby cowers in the corner of a wall and Orlok slaps him until the police come and apprehend the murderer. Orlok ends the film, and his career, with the line "Is that what I was afraid of?"

Bogdanovich's film is a unique approach to filmmaking. He was given strict guidelines and constraints by Roger Corman, but somehow, he managed to pull off a rather interesting and convincing film. The guerilla filmmaking style that Bogdanovich used was quite plausibly the only way he could have completed this film. While the technical quality of this film was sub-par, the story was at least somewhat enticing. To be honest, I consider Targets to be a great achievement in filmmaking, but only considering Bogdanovich's limitations. If it wasn't for Orlok stating that "people aren't scared of horror films anymore; this is what they are scared of" and throwing the newspaper in front of Sammy Michaels, I don't think this film would have had any success whatsoever. The two stories had no parallels other than that nearly forced comparison of the horrors of Bobby Thompson and Byron Orlok. Though despite the unconnected narratives, the parallel structure of the film worked theoretically. I did enjoy the development of the characters, though more justification for Bobby's actions is definitely lacking in the film. I feel that there really isn't much to comment on, I respect Bogdanovich's achievement through Targets, it definitely isn't easy to pull off a task like that, but at the same time I wasn't so impressed with it to hail it. The story seems too forced, as though you can tell he had limitations on him. The quality is low budget, the sound; lack of music and even cinematography at times is all evidence of a low-budget production by a novice director. It is an interesting story, but not all that entertaining because it is slow and redundant. For the time, it was a highly influential and very important film for the current events. I don't know how relevant it is for our time, perhaps the Targets is like Byron Orlok, having outlived his time and ready to pass things on to the next generation.