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- Netflix
- Feb 10, 2021
- Netflix
- Feb 10, 2021
Summary The four-part documentary series from director Joe Berlinger looks into the 1993 disappearance of Elisa Lam from Los Angeles' Cecil Hotel.
- Netflix
- Feb 10, 2021
- Netflix
- Feb 10, 2021
Season Premiere: Feb 10, 2021
51
4.2
Where to Watch
Summary The four-part documentary series from director Joe Berlinger looks into the 1993 disappearance of Elisa Lam from Los Angeles' Cecil Hotel.
Where to Watch
Season Episodes
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Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 10 Critic Reviews
51
30% Positive
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
70% Mixed
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 10 Critic Reviews
51
30% Positive
3 Reviews
3 Reviews
70% Mixed
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Sophisticated, gripping, and full of perspectives usually absent in the genre, Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel is an expertly-paced mystery and a thought-provoking discussion on classism, mental health, and the ethics of true crime. It’s also remarkably cinematic in terms of aesthetics, thriving with atmospheric visuals and clever pacing that create a murky, engrossing atmosphere. You’ll finish it in one sitting.
There are times when “Crime Scene” leans too much into that mindset of salacious true crime obsessives, but I believe it’s for the greater good in the end, illustrating how many of the conspiracy theories around Elisa Lam were misguided at best.
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 12 User Ratings
4.2
25% Positive
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
25% Mixed
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
50% Negative
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 12 User Ratings
4.2
25% Positive
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
25% Mixed
3 Ratings
3 Ratings
50% Negative
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
It's funny that the other reviews don't seem to understand what this was. This wasn't a show about this crime. It is a show about the nature of certain folks who have their own version of mental illness and obsess about a person and or a crime case that they have absolutely no connection to. No expertise. No more knowledge about a crime. Scene than any random common person who has a slight or more. Interest in true crime.
The sad issue here is that mental Illness is extremely difficult and imp. And a large group of individuals who are. Concerned with themselves and what helping solve a mystery does. Fo
For their own lives and anyone who has never seen what bipolar disorder look like when medication stops has no concept of how serious it affects a person.
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SEASON 1
[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]
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SEASON 1
With too much crammed into even a relatively lengthy four-hour running time to drive home its most salient points, The Vanishing At The Cecil Hotel ends up being a tragedy wrapped in a mystery shoehorned into paranormal nonsense.
What Crime Scene needs is much more of Doug Mungin, a Skid Row urban scholar, and much less of almost everything else. ... There's just a way to do a commentary on the corrosive effect of true-crime voyeurism without being so pervasively voyeuristic, and I wish Crime Scene had walked that tightrope more deftly.
We’re served an uncomfortable, crude murder mystery. There are some redeeming qualities, though you have to pay rather close attention to notice them. Contributors are wide-ranging and forthcoming, especially the hotel manager Amy Price, who comes across as bewildered, defensive and excited to be on Netflix all at the same time.
While there are essentially two stories here, neither is told in a terribly compelling way. ... “The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel” falls in love with the crime lore aspects of the case, and feels more exploitative than revealing. ... The series makes a point of interviewing at least two guests from that time who recall the funny taste of the water when brushing their teeth, repeating much of what they’d already said in contemporaneous news clips included in the series.
The basic facts of Lam’s death are so upsetting, that Crime Scene’s various attempts to lighten the mood with historical detours and commentary from cutesy eccentrics such as the general manager with the Veronica Lake wave, feel, at best, in very poor taste. It is not spooky, it is just sad; desperately sad that a family have lost their beloved daughter and sad, too, that in Los Angeles, as in many other places around the world, the result of human beings in a mental health crisis is avoidable tragedy.
Whilst entertaining enough, this documentary (?) series is about 3 episodes too long, and uses the age old trick of fleshing out sequences with people stating the obvious. The pacing is plodding, and leads to very little payoff seeing as the case is yet unsolved. In addition, the so called 'internet sleuths' detract from any sensible plot, and lead us into YouTube conspiracy territory. Not what I was expecting, and I can't say I was pleasantly surprised.
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SEASON 1
Four long hours of backstory and long pointless detours just to tell you that an adult woman didn't take her meds caused her own death. First two episodes keep you guessing and engaged, but then they pad out the series with a full episode devoted to conspiracy theories posited by internet death groupies. Finally to deliver the conclusion that nothing sinister happened to her at all. Tragic story, but when they get to the conclusion I realized what a waste of hours it had been. Even the title is a lie: there is NO CRIME involved here. Accidental death.
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SEASON 1