“I know how people think of me these days. Old-fashioned, outmoded. You can’t change a lifetime with one picture.”
On the Macro, Targets shows the transition from classic Horror to modern real-world terrors by placing two stories on an eventual collision course. The aging Hollywood horror icon – Boris Karloff essentially playing himself – looks back on and deconstructs his career while a troubled gun enthusiast looks to practice on actual humans. The scenes with Karloff are formal, cleverly written and classically composed. The scenes with the sniper are documentary style, with most dialogue coming from radios and television. They’re patient and breathe, which creates the tension (and a certain amount of boredom.) Because there’s no psychological analysis, the sniper isn’t a very interesting character to follow. Karloff is entrancingly charismatic, but the sniper is carelessly dangerous.
On the Micro, this is to Boris Karloff what The Shootist was to John Wayne. It takes a living legend and builds a story around that persona that lets you inside and lets the legend choose how he wants to cap off an astonishing career. I didn’t appreciate this nearly as much on my first viewing, but 50+ Karloff features, a career in television production, and my own decades of wisdom later, I loved the meta-ness of Orlok choosing to walk away right as he about to be offered the part of a lifetime. (“Anybody can walk through the special effects.”) Karloff doesn’t play the character as tired, but as over it all and he’s quite funny as he cuts through all the usual publicity and hype with a new sense of freedom.
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