Series Review: "Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel" (2021).

From the Emmy Award winning director of Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile comes Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel. This crime documentary series directed by Joe Berlinger. From housing serial killers to untimely deaths, the Cecil Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles is known to many as LA's deadliest hotel. The latest chapter in the Cecil's dark history involves the mysterious disappearance of college student Elisa Lam.

On the morning of February 19, 2012, the body of Elisa Lam, a Canadian student from Vancouver, was recovered from a water tank atop the Cecil Hotel in Downtown Los Angeles – at which she had been staying preceding her death. She had been reported missing on February 1. Maintenance workers at the hotel discovered the body when investigating guest complaints of problems with the water supply and water pressure. Her disappearance had been widely reported; interest had increased five days prior to her body's discovery when the Los Angeles Police Department released a video of the last time she was known to have been seen, on the day of her disappearance, by an elevator security camera in the Cecil Hotel. The video went viral on the Internet, with many viewers reporting that they found it unsettling. Explanations ranged from claims of paranormal involvement to bipolar disorder, which Lam took medication for. It has also been argued that the video was altered prior to release. The circumstances of Lam's death, once she was found, also raised questions, especially in light of the hotel's history in relation to other notable deaths and murders. Her body was naked with most of her clothes and personal effects floating in the water near her. It took the Los Angeles County Coroner's office four months, after repeated delays, to release the autopsy report, which reports no evidence of physical trauma and states that the manner of death was accidental. Guests at the Cecil, now re-branded as Stay on Main, and Lam's parents sued the hotel over the incident; the latter was dismissed in 2015. Some of the early Internet interest noted what were considered to be unusual similarities between Lam's death and the 2002 horror film Dark Water.

The series draws its strength precisely from what many have misunderstood as an error that Elisa Lam was either murdered by a resident or a staff member of the hotel, or even by supernatural forces. The experience of watching the series is characterized by prurience, self-obsession, and, ultimately, a failure to hold to account the people who should have investigated these crimes properly. Berlinger handles the material with the significance it deserved. His use of archival footage, images, and interviews paint a full and complete picture of the events. However, the result is less satisfying than it is underwhelming. Ultimately, the series isn't primed to make a person find closure in the most satisfying way possible. If we are judging the series on just the merits of where it stands with its true crime brethren, the best thing to say is it's enjoyably familiar. And yes, that is a compliment.

Simon says Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel receives:

Also, see my review for Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile.