Targets (1968)

Targets is special because it looks straight at America’s appetite for violence and asks, with chilling calm, what happens when movie-made fear is no longer the scariest thing in the room. Peter Bogdanovich’s debut moves with the clean, unsettling precision of a thriller, crosscutting between the weary grace of Boris Karloff’s aging horror icon and the blank normalcy of a young man slipping into the unthinkable, until the two worlds collide in a finale that’s as tense as it is haunting. Karloff gives a quietly poignant performance—less monster than human artifact—making the film feel like both a sharp crime story and an elegy for an older kind of cinematic dread. It’s not an easy watch, and the gun violence can hit hard, but if you want a smart, resonant 1960s thriller that still feels uncomfortably current, Targets is the kind of movie that stays with you long after the screen goes dark.

Targets is clearly trying to contrast old-fashioned, “safe” movie horror with the blunt, senseless violence of the modern world, and that idea still lands harder than you might expect for 1968. The problem is the execution can feel uneven: it toggles between a compelling, chilly spree narrative and a meta showbiz subplot that sometimes plays like padding rather than a fully integrated story. Some scenes have a rough, slightly trashy grindhouse edge that fits the era but can also make the serious subject matter feel handled a bit crudely. Watch it if you’re curious about early Bogdanovich or want a tense time capsule with Boris Karloff’s dignified presence; skip it if you need polished drama, tight pacing, or a consistently tasteful approach to real-world violence.