Docu-Series of the Day — February 15
Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel — Netflix — 2021
Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel — Netflix — 2021
15.February.2021
Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel — Netflix
Director: Joe Berlinger
2021
Beginning with 1992’s Brother’s Keeper, Joe Berlinger has been behind some of the best documentaries in the past 25 years.
Perhaps his two most notable, and arguably his best, are Metallica: Some Kind of Monster and the Paradise Lost Trilogy.
Berlinger’s latest docuseries is Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel, which is now available on Netflix. This series tells the tale of missing 21-year-old Canadian Elisa Lam from the notorious Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles.
He begins telling the story as a missing person type of case. He withholds the information that could’ve cut this series down to a compelling 90-minute documentary. Instead, it’s four episodes of interviews with “web sleuths” (their words, not mine).
Berlinger weaves in the hotel’s history, which is objectively speaking, shady as fuck. Over the years, there were suicides, murders, od’s, and hookers. Even the serial killer known as the Night Stalker Richard Ramirez called the Cecil home for a bit).
Fortunately, Berlinger doesn’t rely only on the “web sleuths.” He includes interviews with LA cops, hotel staff and the Medical Examiner.
Along the way, loads of conspiracy theories fly around:
The hotel was behind Lam’s disappearance
The LAPD is covering something up
The ME is covering up for the cops.
Frankly, it’s the typical bullshit you’d expect from people, no matter their intention, who have too much time on their hands.
And look, God knows there are reasons to suspect the LA Police of all sorts of shady shit. The Elisa Lam case isn’t one of them.
By the beginning of the second episode, I knew what happened. Not because I’m smart, but true-crime often falls along Occam’s Razor — “the simplest explanation is usually the right one.” And Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotels is no different. Once a little reveal is made, it was easy to figure it out.
From there, it became one of the most frustrating series for me to watch. I found myself yelling at the television because so much time was given to these “sleuths” and their inane theories — when they were ignoring the obvious.
The “sleuths” became so derailed that they went to great lengths to destroy someone that they, and only they, considered a suspect — a death metal artist by the name of Morbid.
He had stayed at the Cecil for one night, a year before Lam’s disappearance. And he wasn’t even in the United States at the time of her disappearance.
This did not stop the internet hacks from tearing him apart. So much so that his You Tube channel was shut down, his email shut down, he was kicked off Facebook and most social media. All because of the dust these “sleuths” kicked up.
The cops didn’t consider him a suspect. Still, they talked to him. Since there was no evidence connecting him to her disappearance, the police ruled him out as a suspect. The only people calling Morbid a murderer were the “web sleuths” with their wild conjecture and theories.
No matter your thoughts on Death Metal as a genre, these “sleuths” destroyed his career, art, and income stream. So much so that he attempted to take his own life. That’s not cool.
I won’t go into the details or particulars about how or why Elisa Lam went missing. Or what was behind it. Even though it’s blown out over four episodes, Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotels is still a decent watch.
As frustrating as episodes two to four were for me if only because I had to listen to these “sleuths” natter on, Berlinger threads the needle in the last 20 minutes of the series.
And he does this by revealing the message: we’re all human, and we all make mistakes.
Did Elisa Lam make a mistake? Yea, a tragic and deadly one.
Did the LAPD make mistakes? Yea, they own it and feel awful about it.
Did the hotel make mistakes? Yes, and they own it.
Did the Medical Examiner make a mistake — that was then wildly conflated by the “sleuths”? Yes, and the ME owns it.
Did the “web sleuths” make mistakes? Yes. Several. And while some cop to it, others don’t …and none apologize for destroying Morbid’s livelihood.
In the end, Joe Berlinger, as he so often does, brings it all together …but I still think it could’ve been a brilliant 90-minute movie.