31 Days of Horror: Day 23- Targets (1968)

Despite the gruesome creatures, flying limbs and buckets of blood, horror as a genre can feel pretty stale. For every excellent film there is a dozen forgettable or terrible ones. And there are so many that it takes a lot of wading through the rubbish to get to the interesting stuff. For each day in October I’m going to recommend a different horror film or film about horror.  For the most part they won’t be the accepted classics. My selections range from the genuinely excellent to the delightfully strange with a few that are more fascinating than they are great. Hopefully there will be something for everyone and you’ll find something new to give you a scare or maybe a laugh. This is my 31 days of Horror and today I’m talking about: Targets.

Roger Corman is not one of the greatest directors, at times he has been an awful director, but his impact on the film industry is undeniable. He made films to make money, and he knew how to do so quickly and cheaply. If his director’s kept to his rules and made a profit then they would pretty much have freedom to do as they pleased. Back in the 60’s and 70’s when he was churning out B-movies he gave a start to guys like Martin Scorsese, Joe Dante, Francis Ford Coppola, Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonda and Peter Bogdanovich. A lot of the time these films were not great but every so often something brilliant would come out of Corman’s production company. One of those films is Peter Bogdanovich’s directorial debut Targets. It’s not so much a horror film as much as it is a film about horror but I think it fits in this series. The film has a connection to horror films of the past as well as the real horrors of modern life. Targets comments on the vast difference between movie horrors and real life horrors but it also show that the false stuff still has power. It is a film that is terrifyingly prescient and more relevant today than ever.

We follow two stories that only cross over in one tiny scene in the middle and then finally converge at the end. Aging actor Byron Orlok (Boris Karloff) announces his retirement after his latest horror film has wrapped. At the same time, a young Vietnam War veteran named Bobby Thompson (Tim O’Kelly) goes about his somewhat boring life. He has an appreciation of hunting and guns but he doesn’t really do much other than work and watch television. Meanwhile the young writer/director Sammy Michaels (Peter Bogdanovich) tries to talk Orlok into taking on one more role. Sammy has written a script specifically for Orlok, a role that is unlike the recent B-movie stuff he has been in lately. Sammy tries to convince Orlok to come out of retirement but he seems adamant that his upcoming public appearance at a drive-in will be his last official work as an actor. As this goes on Bobby just snaps and goes on a shooting spree. This goes on until both stories meet at Orlok’s appearance at a drive-in theatre.

Corman gave Bogdanovich several guidelines but beyond that he was given complete freedom. He had to use footage from the Jack Nicolson/Boris Karloff movie The Terror and the film had to include Karloff because Corman had him contracted to work two days work and Corman wouldn’t waste them. It’s often said that artists strive with limitations and this is an excellent example of that. The footage from The Terror is used at the beginning and the end as clips from Byron Orlok’s last film. This is one of the many ties that Targets has to film history. Orlok’s name comes from the 1922 Nosferatu film’s character Count Orlok. Even the name Sammy Michaels is a nod to director Samuel Fuller (middle name Michael) who also contributed to the script. There are even a few conversations within Targets about film in general. So in one direction the film is entrenched in cinematic history but the other side of the story is locked into reality. Bobby’s side of the story is sterile, plain and mundane. There are neither allusions to great works nor even much style (until the end). Here Bogdanovich highlights one of the key differences between real life horrors and those from the movies. Movies are constructed to make us feel a certain way, there’s purpose behind everything. Reality doesn’t have a story arc, many awful things happen without reason. One side of the story draws attention to its falseness through references and a narrative arc, something intrinsic to stories, but it doesn’t take us out of the story. The artificiality does not detract from how it makes us feel. The other side is almost numbing in how ordinary it is. When Bobby starts shooting people it is horrific, it takes action for his story to evoke feelings. No action occurs in Orlok’s tale until the end but we’re much more invested and affected because of the artificial things. This is why horror films will always have a place no matter how horrific the world becomes. They provide stories with meaning that can make us feel a wide range of emotions. As scary as reality might become, we still need the safety of a constructed scare. Movies breathe life into reality by trying to make sense of it all. Orlok’s films scare even Bobby, a modern horror. Targets emphasises the power of film in overcoming the fears of modern life and it does so wonderfully.

Although Targets highlights the power of film it also acknowledges how film is changing at the time. The world is shifting and Karloff’s brand of monster is losing its edge. As people begin to publically do awful things it’s harder to take a shambling creature with outstretched arms seriously. Today’s monsters are not recognisable by their outlandish costumes or sinister way of speaking, they’re just normal people like Bobby. Targets shows a great love for films of the past, especially in one scene where Sammy and Orlok watch an old Howard Hawks film on TV and Sammy says, “All the good pictures have been made”. But it acknowledges that these movies are very much a thing of the past. Our ability to know what terrible things are happening in the world has annulled us to the fictional terrors of the past. This film shows the turning point not just in horror filmmaking but filmmaking in general. Theatricality is stepping aside for reality. Orlok is a stand in for the old way of making movies and he is retiring. We see that his films have not lost their influence and importance but they have to step aside. As much as the film works well as just a story it is also an elegy for Old Hollywood.

In recent years it seems like Targets has become even more relevant. It’s historically interesting at showing the turning point in filmmaking in the late 60’s but its story is sadly echoed by events in recent years. How someone can suddenly have a mental break is terrifying and it’s difficult to understand how such things can happen. It reminds us of the power narrative has in helping us to try make sense of what we can’t comprehend. Not only that but it’s incredibly well written, has amazing performances, is stylishly shot (except when it’s purposefully bland) and is enjoyable too. As awful as some of the acts we see are, the story of Sammy trying to convince Orlok not to retire is entertaining. It brings levity and life to a story full of vividly deplorable acts. No matter how bad things get we can always be uplifted by stories. Targets tells a compelling story but it also has a lot to say and it does it fantastically.

James M Macleod