• they/them

plural system in Seattle, WA (b. 1974)
lots of fictives from lots of media, some horses, some dragons, I dunno. the Pnictogen Wing is poorly mapped.

host: Mx. Kris Dreemurr (they/them)

chief messenger and usual front: Mx. Chara or Χαρά (they/them)

other members:
Mx. Frisk, historian (they/them)
Monophylos Fortikos, unicorn (he/him)
Kel the Purple, smol derg (xe/xem)
Pim the Dragon, Kel's sister (she/her)


A few days ago came the news that the legendary movie producer and director Roger Corman, "The King of the B Movies", passed away at the age of 98. Aside from his own films, Corman is revered for giving an early career push to a tremendous number of top-flight movie directors: Francis Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Jonathan Demme, Joe Dante, John Sayles, and James Cameron are among them, as well as Peter Bogdanovich (who passed on in 2022), friend and biographer of Orson Welles and director of The Last Picture Show and Paper Moon.

Targets was Bogdanovich's first movie, made under the tutelage of Roger Corman, who gets the production credit. "I went from getting the laundry to directing the picture in three weeks. Altogether, I worked 22 weeks—preproduction, shooting, second unit, cutting, dubbing—I haven't learned as much since," said Bogdanovich of the experience of making it. It's a powerful first movie, a triumph of location shooting and minimal dialogue. But it is an "exploitation movie", for good or ill.

The term "exploitation movie" doesn't get used much these days, even though people still make exploitation movies. M. Night Shyamalan's Split, for example, fits the description of an exploitation movie. Such movies are made to cash in on current events or social trends, usually things that make for lurid tabloid headlines like drug abuse or mental illness. Exploitation movies aren't necessarily bad movies, but because such movies are made on the cheap, focusing chiefly on the shocking nature of the subject material, exploitation films generally aren't interested in realistic depiction or psychological depth or even narrative coherence. The hope is that audiences come simply to see (say) an insane asylum on screen, made to look entertainingly squalid. Thoughtful exploitation movies exist, like Sam Fuller's Shock Corridor—gems amid heaps of rubbish.

cw: spoilers for Bogdanovich's Targets


Targets is a gem, I think, even though it's exploitation. It was made to capitalize on the infamous spree killings of Charles Whitman, the ex-Marine sharpshooter who, on 1 August 1966, barricaded himself in the clock tower of the University of Texas in Austin with a stash of guns, and murdered seventeen people before the cops finally killed him. As is generally the case with exploitation movies made about a specific person or event, Corman and Bogdanovich came up with a story that's just different enough to disclaim any direct connection to Whitman, but there's too many obvious points of similarity. The film's spree killer, Bobby Thompson (played by Tim O'Kelly), is young and blonde like Whitman. He complains of headaches before going on his spree, as Whitman did. He types out a cryptic note indicating that he's aware of what he's about to do, as Whitman did, though the note itself is different, and Bodganovich adds a flourish: Bobby types it out in red ink. And he murders two people in his home first, although Whitman did not use a gun.

There's no "interiority" to Bobby Thompson in Targets; you'll not find any attempt to explain or rationalize Bobby's killing spree. His mention about having a headache might mean nothing to a viewer who didn't already know Charles Whitman's story. (It was later found that Whitman had a small brain tumor but it'll never be known if it caused his murderous ideation.) There's one mesmerizing scene early in the film, however, that I think suggests what might be going through Bobby's head: he's practicing his marksmanship in an empty lot, shooting cans alongside his father Robert. His dad goes downrange to line up more cans while Bobby reloads, and then Bobby looks speculatively towards the distant figure of his father, standing next to a paper target they've set up. He hesitates a moment, then slowly raises his rifle to draw a bead on his father's back. Bogdanovich treats us to a lengthy subjective shot down the barrel of the rifle as Bobby tracks his father's movements, and then we see his finger creep towards the trigger. It's as if Bobby realizes in that moment that he's capable of regarding his own father as a target, just another object to be shot at, and he's savoring the moment of dehumanization. "I can do this deed," he might be thinking—until his father catches him and Bobby's forced to pretend he was just checking the sights.

Against the slow and meticulous unreeling of Bobby's plans for a shooting spree is set a curious framing device starring Boris Karloff, whom Corman required Bogdanovich to include in his movie. Karloff plays a variation on himself: he's a legendary horror actor named Orlok (get it?) who's burned out by Hollywood, planning to retire and return to England, and only by chance does his story intersect with Bobby's when the young killer decides to continue his spree at a drive-in movie theatre where Orlok is making a publicity appearance. Orlok had been lamenting that the news headlines were now more horrific than anything he could ever enact on screen, and he's poetically granted the chance to face such a real-life horror himself: fearlessly he advances on Bobby and disarms him, escaping serious injury even though Bobby tries to gun Orlok down as he approaches. That might seem contrived and convenient but I liked the moment: it's emotionally satisfying to see Bobby unnerved by a human being marching directly towards him, heedless of danger. Bobby had been able to shoot down his targets as long as they were unaware of him, but his assurance deserts him when Orlok looks him in the face.

Good movie. Violent as hell, though. Lots of people die in horrible ways. Targets may be an exploitation movie, but it is definitely not fun.

~Chara of Pnictogen

EDIT: deleted a mistaken detail


You must log in to comment.