Targets (1968)

Ironically one of the last movies to feature "Old Hollywood" horror icon Boris Karloff, was also the first movie to be directed by "New Hollywood" wunderkind Peter Bogdanovich. The genesis of  what would become Targets comes from Karloff owing B movie producing legend Roger Corman a few days work, and the desire to reuse some footage from his 1963 horror film The Terror, featuring a young Jack Nicholson. Writer/director Bogdanovich took these two directives and built a rather effective and original story around them. The film itself is really two narratives which come together in the end, the first being Karloff playing essentially himself, an aging horror movie veteran named Byron Orlok, seriously considering retiring from film because the movies he's being asked to make just aren't that scary anymore. The second narrative was inspired by the then recent case of University of Texas tower sniper Charles Whitman. In this narrative the largely forgotten actor Tim O'Kelly nicely underplays a seemingly all American type young man who comes unhinged, kills his wife and his mother, and then goes on a shooting spree culminating in a very well staged sequence at the end, were from a small hole in a drive in movie screen he starts picking off movie goers in their cars who have come for a movie showing/ meet and great with Orlok. Though not a big success at the time Targets has since become something of a cult classic and impressed enough people in the film industry to help Bogdanovich secure financing for more personal projects and launch his film carrier. A good and unusual piece of horror filmmaking that showcases what a lot of creativity and talent can do on a shoestring budget. ***1/2