Forgotten Film Friday - Targets (1968)

As one man ponders his place in society, another seeks to remove other from it.

What is Forgotten Film Friday? Well, I'm taking a look at a film that seems to have been forgotten by film watchers. Does this mean it’s hard to find or unavailable? No, but most movie fans seem to have lost track of it. Here, I’ll point them in the direction of what I thought about them when I did end up finding them.

Plot: An aging horror movie star questions if his performances are fit for a world filled with real-life violence. An unassuming man suffers from crazy thoughts and decides to take other people’s fates into his own hands.

Review: While America has always had its turmoil, it has often been a place of refuge from strife across the rest of the world. If you were disadvantaged, you could make it to America and build a better life. It’s the American Dream. At least, that was the story that was told to most of the world. Whether it was true or not would have to be up to the one living that dream. Or nightmare.

Guns have often been seen as a big problem, and depending on which side of the debate you fall on, we can all agree that something has been broken. Maybe it’s mental health. It could be easy access. Or it could just be that society hasn’t lived up to the promise that it has made to itself. This is nothing new, and even in the 1960s, we knew something was happening.

In Targets, we meet Byron Orlock (Boris Karloff), who is an aging horror star. He has come to the realization that his best days and films are behind him. His new film, The Terror, is about to be released, and he doesn’t see anything worth watching. He’s done. He is planning to retire. With everything happening in the country, he doesn’t see his gothic horror style as anything anyone cares to see anymore. His director, Sam (Peter Bogdanovich), keeps trying to change his mind as he has written a new role for him, but Byron won’t even read it.

Across the street, a young man named Bobby (Tim O’Kelly) wants to purchase a new gun. He plans on hunting some pigs he eventually tells the shopkeep. We follow him home and spend time with him and his family. They seem like the average family. Grace is said before dinner. The house is kept neat and tidy. Nothing is out of the ordinary. Except in Bobby’s mind.

As the film plays, we go back and forth between the two stories and wait to see how they will finally intersect. Byron keeps putting Sam off of doing another movie. He claims that his style of horror is now looked at as camp. To that effect, the segments with Byron and Sam even have a light back-and-forth between the characters and even play for laughs. After a night of drinking, Sam declares that he has to go. Byron says he should stay. Sam agrees and then collapses into a heap on the floor, obviously in no shape to drive.

Whenever we go back to Bobby’s house everything seems so matter of fact. Most of the conversations are serious and direct. Bobby tells his wife he’s been having strange thoughts. They are shrugged off as no big deal until Bobby can’t control them anymore and shoots her and his mother. He leaves a note stating that more people will die before he is caught. This is all done with almost no emotion or reaction. It’s serious business. He climbs a storage container and begins to open fire on people who drive by on the highway.

The interesting thing about the film is that the two tones of the story strangely fit together perfectly. How? I’m not sure, but it works. Byron hands Sam a newspaper so he can read the headline about people being killed and says that this is the horror most people experience now—not his movies set in castles with ghosts. While the two stories mirror each other, it’s not until the final moments of the film that they finally culminate in a drive-in where Byron and Bobby share the screen together.

Karloff is fantastic in his role. It doesn’t seem hard for him to tap into the mindset of an aging horror star as he actually is. From all accounts, he was the opposite of Orlock, though, as he loved his standing as a horror icon and never shrugged it off. He has a great time in the character's shoes, and it’s easy to see that he loved this role when it was presented to him. Corman said that he owed him two days on a movie, and this film was supposed to be built around that. It turns out he worked for five and declined payment for the extra days.

On the other hand, Tim O’Kelly does a great job as the boy next door who ends up snapping. While we spend time with him and his family, we see that his life is pretty normal. Nothing stands out that would push him to commit such a horrible crime. His character was based on Charles Whitman, who famously climbed a tower and gunned down a bunch of people. He, too, seemed to be a completely normal man that snapped one day. No explanation given.

As the two stories begin to slowly merge, we see that soon, the real-life horror is coming to the fake horror film as Bobby ends up hiding in the drive-in where Byron will be attending an event for his new film. As the bullets begin to fly, a panic breaks out, and people flee. The tension that is built up throughout the film is incredible, and only by spending the preceding hour with these characters can we learn to fear for their safety. Bogdanovich expertly directs this film to squeeze every bit of suspense out of the situation before the aged horror actor and real-life killer finally come face to face.

Maybe one of the most haunting shots of the film comes during the closing credits as they play over a shot of the empty drive-in during the bright light of day. Empty except for the one lone car that is left over. A reminder that this place is now haunted forever by the actions of one man’s compulsions.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, I loved this movie, and it is something you should quickly seek out. How the movie's two halves play against each other is perfection and an example of expert screenwriting, marvelous direction, and some of the best acting to come from that generation of stars.

WATCH IT FORGET IT

But don’t take my word for it. Seek the film out for yourself and give it a watch. As of this writing, it is digitally available for rent and purchase on every platform you can imagine. If you’re a fan of physical media like myself, then be sure to pick up the release of the film from Criterion. Those half-off sales are always a good time to add to your collection.