Targets (1968)

4 Stars (out of 4)

Deconstructing Scary

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Director Peter Bogdanovich (The Last Picture Show) made his directorial debut with this brilliant film. Bogdanovich had been a film critic and writer before he turned filmmaker, amassing a million stories about great Hollywood personalities like Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford, and Sam Fuller, and learning everything he could from their wisdom and experience.

The story of how Targets came about is just as interesting as the film itself, beginning as an assignment from Roger Corman to make a new film out of two days' worth of shooting with star Boris Karloff, and twenty minutes of footage from The Terror. Bogdanovich and co-writer Polly Platt's solution was inspired.

In one of his last and best roles, Karloff plays an aging horror film star, Byron Orlok, who is about to retire in a scary real-life world where an ordinary white-bread man can climb on top of a water tower and start shooting people on the freeway. The film winds up as Karloff encounters the sniper at the drive-in during the premiere of his latest film.

In 2023, the Criterion Collection released this essential item on a terrific Blu-ray. Colors and textures feel not only authentic, but fresh, bursting. (Bogdanovich supervised this transfer before he died in 2022.) The audio track is uncompressed monaural, and flawless. Bonuses include a great new chat with director Richard Linklater, giving his take on Bogdanovich and the film, an introduction by Bogdanovich filmed in 2003, and an audio interview production designer Polly Platt at the American Film Institute, from 1983. Bogdanovich's commentary track, recorded for the 2003 Paramount DVD, is included as well. The liner notes booklet includes an essay by critic Adam Nayman and excerpts from an interview with Bogdanovich from a 1969 book by Eric Sherman and Martin Rubin. This is Highly Recommended.