User reviews

Good overview of the history of the Cecil but get many of the details wrong Over all a good start if your interested in this creepy hotel.

So this is not Crime Scene : The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel, currently on Netflix. Starting that version prompted me to look up other versions because as many are saying (about the Netflix doc) it is repetitive with a lot of unrelated info as I just wanted to delve into the mystery surrounding the disappearance of Elisa Lam.

Anyway this is your typical Investigation Discovery production that gets 10/10 for episode 2 which solely focuses on Ms. Lam. The other 2 episodes delve into different cases / strange occurrences which are interesting too but you don't have to watch all three.

Note: I think a lot of reviews on this page are for another documentary: Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel. If the review mentions 'web sleuths' they are probably talking about the Netflix doc. This one doesn't have any 'web sleuths'.

As for this documentary: The first episode was good but it went a little off the rails after that. We start in the.80s-90s with the episode about Richard Ramirez and Jack Unterweger. This one was kind of interesting.

Then the second episode jumps to 2013 with the Elisa Lam case. This episode can't decide if it want's to be straight true crime or spooky supernatural. It kind of hints at the later (see below) but then again not really. They should have either gone there nor not, not half way in between.

The third episode was the weakest, jumping back to the 60s. The timeline was confusing. Especially if you notice that the dialogue of couple fighting was the same dialogue of a couple fighting that Elisa Lam heard in her room right before someone knocked on her door and she opened it to find nobody there. (Were they trying to hint that she was hearing ghosts or just being cheap and reusing the sound bite?) There didn't seem to be enough of a story for the third episode so they randomly branched off into the Black Dahlia case. It took me about 5 minutes of internet searching to discover that the ties between the Black Dahlia and the Cecil Hotel are tenuous to non-existent so its inclusion makes no sense.

Some of the negative reviewers commented that the interviews and opinions of the "internet sleuths," conspiracy theorists, and viral posters detract from the documentary. I think these aspects of the context are central to the purpose of the work. The history of the area, reputation of the hotel, sad story of Ms. Lam, online activities of internet sleuths and others, as well as the role of the press, came together to co-create a lurid episode and keep it roiling. Ms. Lam's death is tragic; the social voyeurism and ongoing preoccupation with the incident create another sad but necessary story. The gaze is turned back on the voyeurs, cultural commentators, armchair analysts, and social rubber-neckers. In some cases, maybe their activities productive. What happens when the activites are counterproductive? Who is harmed?