"Gonna shoot some pigs" (Targets (DVD))

Name: hogsflesh

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Product:	Targets (DVD)
Date:	18.02.08 (84 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great Karloff role, great premise, effective violence

Disadvantages: Precious little - the end is a bit silly

A review of the Paramount DVD.

A nifty little film from 1968, Targets was Peter Bogdanovich's first film as a director. It was made to take advantage of the fact that Boris Karloff owed Roger Corman, the film's producer, a few days' work.

An ageing horror icon, Byron Orlock, announces that he's retiring, feeling that his brand of gothic horror is outmoded. He agrees to make one last public appearance to promote his latest film, The Terrror. Meanwhile, a young man goes mad, shoots his family, and then goes on a sniper rampage.

Bobby, the killer, is obviously based on Charles Whitman, the guy who shot people from a tower at the University of Texas in 1966. He's an all-American type with a lovely wife, a fashionable car, a sensible job and a fondness for wholesome rock n roll. He even calls his father 'sir'. He also likes guns, and although he briefly tries to reach out to his wife early on, he soon goes about his murderous business in a scarily matter-of-fact way. His murders, although not particularly bloody by the standards of other films from the time (Bonnie and Clyde or The Wild Bunch) are still pretty shocking, and we feel the human consequences of them.

Counterpointing him with the old horror actor, Orlock, may seem a bit fey, but it mostly works, and their plots cross over at the (ludicrous but cool) climax. Orlock's sections are as self-reflexive as hell, with the star's latest movie, The Terror, also being the real-life Boris Karloff's latest movie. The director of the film is played by Peter Bogdanovich, the, er, director of this film. Orlock sees himself as an anachronism - "My kind of horror isn't horror anymore" - and the whole film is an obvious comment on that.

This is Karloff's last decent role - in fact it's the best part he'd had for decades. He's wonderful, essentially playing a more sardonic and grumpy version of himself. He's visibly frail and can't walk too well - but this film is a worthy end to his career (even if he did make a few more films afterwards). Tom O'Kelly is superb as Bobby the killer, totally believable as the tightly buttoned wage slave gone mad, never retreating into histrionics and never letting us understand him. The rest of the cast are largely unknown. Bogdanovich is OK - like Karloff, he's basically playing himself. He looks incredibly fresh-faced if you're used to seeing him in The Sopranos.

The last 20 minutes is set during a drive-in movie screening. This is the best footage of a drive-in that I'm aware of, which is great if, like me, you've never been to one and want to know what they were like. Given that they'd all but died out within about a decade of Targets being made, it makes you feel that this is as much an elegy for them as for Boris Karloff, although I guess Bogdanovich wouldn't have known that at the time. It's an exciting sequence, anyway.

This is about a new, realistic type of film coming along to replace the traditional Hollywood fare. This, of course, is exactly what happened in the 70s, and Bogdanovich was one of the key directors of his generation. Here, in his debut, you can occasionally see him showing off (there's one scene in a bedroom that uses shadow in a way that's just crying out for him to be patted on the head by the older directors he'd made friends with). But on the whole it's very assured - far more exciting than Coppola's debut, for instance. There are some great images, the sniper bits are exciting, and the Karloff stuff is engaging. The film is 85 minutes, but feels much shorter.

The DVD has a 15-minute introduction to the film by the director, in which he explains how it came to be, how it was made and its reception. He also does a commentary. Bogdanovich is an engaging chap, but you won't necessarily want to watch the commentary just after the introduction, as they're quite similar.

This is a really cool film, and one that deserves to be better known than it is (as ever). Its 15 certificate seems a bit harsh, as the violence isn't terribly explicit. You can get it for less than a fiver on amazon, and at that price you surely can't go wrong.

Summary: Peter Bogdanovich's first film on a cheap DVD