Noutions
Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .
Intcatinfo
A Masterpiece!
Ginger
Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.
bkoganbing
Peter Bogdanovich scored his first critical success with Targets that starred an elderly Boris Karloff playing an elderly star of Gothic horror films hardly a stretch for the man's talents. In fact a whole lot like William Henry Pratt in real life. Karloff is telling the producer of his next film that this is it, despite verbal commitments he wants to retire. He's not reaching the newer generation he fears and his films are called camp. Time to just quit.Peter Bogdanovich who also plays the writer of that project that he's turning his back on urges Karloff to reconsider as does Nancy Hsueh Karloff's girl Friday and Bogdanovich's girl friend. He does however have a personal appearance at a drive-in showing one of his films.But while Karloff is musing about retiring, a very disturbed young man has built himself quite an arsenal. One fine day Tim O'Kelly a veteran of Vietnam who has built himself quite an arsenal decides just matter of factly to go on a human shooting spree. He kills his wife and then mows down a few more on the Freeway and then sets himself up at the drive-in to await the night's events.O'Kelly is a frightening young man and this film sadly set a trend for making Vietnam veterans psychotic villains on screen. It lasted for over a decade. No doubt O'Kelly learned his weapon skill for combat, but lots more veterans came home without going psychotic. In any event O'Kelly's baby face and All American looks are what makes his performance all the more frightening.As for Karloff this was ironically his last film away from the horror genre. When he died the following year he had about four posthumous films awaiting release. Talk about dying with your boots on. In real life the farthest thing from his mind was retiring. The film is set up for the inevitable meeting between the old master of the horror film genre and a purveyor of some true life horror. It's worth the wait to see what happens.
STCorcoran88
Karloff plays an aging icon of the older style horror films of the less graphic, more spooky variety, which has seemingly been rendered obsolete, and, literally under assault, in the film, and unable to frighten or be possessed of any meaning, when contrasted, as the film does, against the more topical horrors of the day typified by a Charles Whitman type, Vietnam vet, who snaps, and turns his sniper training to good use, inflicting terror on the community via a string of r long range killings, against random victims; an an Ed Wood, Lugosi vibe is present in the depiction of a up and coming director, played by Peter Bogdanovich playing Himself,at the time, pretty much, as a film fan doing hackwork, He was, at the time, shooting B-pictures for Roger Corman.
MattyGibbs
Targets is a low budget film featuring one of the last performances of aging legend Boris Karloff. To be honest I wasn't expecting too much from this however it is quite watchable despite some rather wooden acting from the supporting cast. It's billed as a horror/thriller but I would class it much more of a thriller than a horror. It does take a while to get going with the first half of the movie concentrating on setting the scene and getting to know the characters. To be honest they aren't the most exciting bunch although Karloff does a good job in his role. The plot of the film is pretty unusual and it does keep your attention as the tension slowly builds. When the killing does come it's all done rather well which at least vindicates the long build up. Despite the budget constraints this is a decent film and well worth watching.
Jack Higginbotham
Targets is trying to juxtapose the fictional monsters on screen with the real life, unsuspecting monsters in real life, Karloff sums it up in his final line 'thats who the drivers were afraid off' staring at what seems like an innocent young lad who had just moments before killed dozens of people.I think thats why the film works. Karloff wants to retire because he doesn't think he belongs in the world of cinema anymore, people don't find him scary because the monsters he portrays aren't real. Ironically I think people watch Frankenstein today to escape from the 'real horror' and into a world of ghosts, ghouls and monsters.The film itself is a good for the most part. I find myself wanting to see more of Karloff, because his character is so interesting while the character of Bobby is just a psychopath, who one day has a mental breakdown and goes on a shooting spree. Not that that kind of character cant be interesting but I don't think Bogdanovich cared about how or why the Bobby did what he did, he perhaps wanted to state that this happens and show what the real horror is, maybe trying to show the censors that people see stuff like this on the news everyday and yet they want to censor a film about a giant, green monster.Overall, Targets isn't revolutionary. It is, however, nice to see Boris Karloff having fun in his last role and the film is genuinely tense and quite horrifying in how authentic its depictions of violence can be.
