Targets
“End Of An Era” type flicks (depending on the genre) usually are exercises in poignancy, melancholy, or some other kind of overly emotional hodgepodge. Horror movies (on the other hand) have never seemed to go out of style, remaining by far the most popular films of their kind deep into the home video / blu ray / 4K era regardless of the time period from whence they originally came. But there WAS a changeover period regardless for the genre, from the old days when monsters, vampires, and werewolves ruled the proverbial roost with characters like Frankenstein’s Monster, Count Dracula, Imhotep and many others bringing the movie crowds in and scaring them not necessarily because of blood and gore, but rather through mood, atmosphere and most importantly, stylized acting that successfully portrayed elements of evildoing but did so through characters and situations which by and large didn’t even exist as being legitimate threats in our own real world. That would all change, of course, in 1960 with the release of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, a film that introduced us to Norman Bates, somebody who was just as much of a movie monster as those before him, but whom also sported an appearance and demeanor of that of a pleasant, handsome yet somewhat socially awkward young man, a visage that belied what he truly was, a murderous individual with MAJOR sexual identity problems coupled with an obsession for his dead mother, made all the more effective by the fact that we could see him walking down the street and think little of it as if he were any other normal person. But while Psycho (along with Peeping Tom) was really the first of its kind, the full transition from having elaborate monsters into having seemingly normal looking human beings (made even scarier by the now widely known and accepted realization that unlike Dracula and Frankenstein, they CAN exist in real life) would not be made until this 1968 release, the first directorial effort in the rather odd but yet still Hall Of Fame career of one Peter Bogdanovich who rattled off a handful of acknowledged classics before descending into a pit of creative mediocrity. Even better to help carry over this transition is arguably the greatest of all the old time horror movie stars in one Boris Karloff, less remembered today compared to his train wreck contemporary Bela Lugosi or the still cool as a cucumber Vincent Price but whose body of work vastly surpassed both of them, best remembered as Frankenstein but still having starred in literally hundreds of films where his refined acting style was considered to be second to none. Here in one of his last acting roles, Karloff essentially plays himself, an aging horror movie star given the character name “Byron Orlok” in order to still keep things somewhat fictional, but whom nonetheless is somebody who is questioning his place in the acting world simply because he believes that his old films are just NOT SCARY anymore compared to much of what goes on with the suffering in the real world. Meanwhile (in what remains a completely unrelated storyline until the very end), we are introduced to Bobby Thompson (Tim O’Kelly), an apparently normal, well adjusted young man living what appears to be a happy existence with a beautiful young wife and both his mother and father who live in the same house with them. Bobby is also a MAJOR gun enthusiast, having been turned onto them early in life by his equally trigger happy dad, with the two of them often going out for target practice competitions where they shoot tomato and soda cans. Bobby appears to be having some pretty deep thoughts nowadays, apparently related to him feeling more comfortable behind the scope of his rifle than even in spending quality time with his family. At one point, he tries to relate to his wife what he feels that he’s going through, but she blows him off because she has to go to work. His parents remain blissfully oblivious to his state of mind though, as he successfully covers up around them with an obviously fake smile and attempts at maintaining an overly jovial personality. Finally, he decides that he’s ready to actually do what he was thinking about doing, first using a handgun to murder his wife, mother and an innocent grocery delivery boy (dad wasn’t home) and then he sets off with enough firearms and ammo for an elephant hunt to go on his killing spree, positioning himself first on top of a tower and then later, behind the screen at a drive in movie theatre where Karloff is scheduled to be making a personal appearance. With two seemingly disparate and soon to be intersecting storylines at play here, we are still allowed to have a movie that remembers to breathe when it comes to developing its two main characters on a collision course with each other. Karloff wonderfully does the tired old man routine to a tee, and while not nearly as embittered in real life as his counterpart in the movie, manages to get some sparkling repartee with his supporting players, most notably the novice Hollywood writer and director trying to get him to continue to appear in his movies played by none other than Bogdanovich himself in a nice bit of life imitating art. But O’Kelly (who literally disappeared off the Hollywood radar after making such an impact here) is just as impressive as the killer Bobby, knowing full well that his role doesn’t require him to give any kind of extended acting monologues but rather to make himself appear as NORMAL as possible before grabbing his weapons for the purposes of killing and the idea that we DON’T have a full grasp of his motives or reasons for what he’s doing is exactly what makes him so frightening, although there’s some possibilities that he has severe daddy issues (“yes sir”) and a possible military and / or wartime (Vietnam?) background, but what he transforms into is something that still remains a problem all these years later, the onslaught of mass shooters who can literally appear at any time IN REAL LIFE and open fire in an effort to cause as much loss of life as possible. Regardless of the reasons for these malcontent types and their actions (bullying, mind control, sexual frustration), the inexcusable violence that they bring is practically accepted now as being a viable (albeit extreme) last resort method of dealing with one’s issues, possibly in an attempt to feel like God (i.e. getting to pick who lives and who dies) or just to bring all sorts of sick, twisted fantasies of violence into our own accepted realm of reality. The question of gun control should also be brought up here in that should it have been so easy for him to be able to stock up on the guns and ammo (“charge it to my dad”) or would he have just found another way to obtain firearms no matter what? In all fairness, the climax does feature another armed yet well intentioned citizen trying to avert further deaths, but in the end this film needs to be remembered not as a “thriller” or a “drama” or a “crime film” but as an outright HORROR movie, plain and simple, with many of the kill scenes containing a VERY unpleasant and unsettling air to them (the gun murders are more grounded in stark realism rather than the flashy theatrics that we’re accustomed to in movies which makes them all the more disgusting), thus making us hate and despise THIS particular monster more and more as the film goes on, even as there also is a much loved and respected movie monster (Karloff) waiting in the wings the whole time (and yes, even at 80 years old Karloff’s monster IS headed for a showdown with this more modern counterpart) and at a drive in movie theatre (one of the greatest of oldschool American institutions) to boot, with Bogdanovich as a director excellently capturing the feel and atmosphere of the drive in environment even before Bobby decides to climb up over the screen and start picking off innocent moviegoers, a course of action that he will soon regret when Boris takes notice of what he’s doing and unleashes his wrath…
9/10