Tabloid DVD Review

Tabloid DVD Review

Rating: M
Released by Vendetta Films

A doco about a former beauty queen who was accused of kidnapping and raping a Mormon missionary, it's easy to see why Tabloid would be a sensationalised film.

Former beauty queen Joyce McKinney is the subject of this slickly put together piece by Errol Morris, which actually resembles a tabloid newspaper on the screen as it flashes lurid headlines and story tidbits throughout.

Morris steps back from the story and lets the bizarreness play out in this scandal from the 1970s - he lets the talking heads and all sides of the tale put their story across, doesn't intervene or mock anyone from the course of their narrative.

The end result is a satisfying if bizarre watch; the equivalent of having your eyes stretch larger in incredulity the more it goes on.

Plus with McKinney, there's been such a pattern of weirdness in her life post this event in the 1970s that you start to question how much of the truth is actually falling from her lips.

And despite the lurid source material (you can totally understand why Morris and the UK tabloid newspapers were attracted to this story in the 1970s) what emerges is a sensibly put together doco which is watchable, and poses more questions than it answers.

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