Home     How It Works    Previews    Writings    Reviews     Students    Programs    e-mail us!

TARGETS

(1968)

Tim O’Kelly, Boris Karloff, Arthur Peterson; Dir. by Peter Bogdanovich

Byron Orlock (Karloff) is an aging horror movie star who decides to retire. Bobby Thompson (O’Kelly) is a seemingly average young man who decides to start killing people. The film follows the story of both men until their paths intersect at a drive in movie theatre and ‘reel’ horror meets ‘real’ horror.

The character of Bobby Thompson is based on Charles Whitman who had gone on a killing spree two years earlier. He had murdered his wife and mother and then went on to kill 17 people from the top of a clock tower at the University of Texas. The character of Orlok (named after the vampire in F.W. Murnau’s 1922 classic Nosferatu) is practically Karloff playing himself. By the 60’s Karloff was starring in low budget horror films that usually went straight to drive-in theatres. This was his last great role and reportedly one of his favourites

Karloff had made The Terror (1963) for Rodger Corman and still owed him several days’ work. Corman who had been the original producer of Targets handed over producing and directing duties to Peter Bogdanovich who used Karloff, a small budget and his unrestricted access to footage from The Terror to produce his first and possibly his best feature film. The script originally written by Bogdanovich was given a major rewrite by an uncredited Samuel Fuller.

- James Sandry