The Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles is a deceivingly beautiful hotel with a notorious past. Home to many missing persons cases, overdoses, suicides, and more, as well as multiple known serial killers spending nights there, the hotel is rumored to be the last known place of The Black Dahlia, Elizabeth Short, and was the residences of two notorious serial killers Richard Ramierez, the Night Stalker, and Jack Unterweger, who had strangled three sex workers in his room. The hotel and its events inspired “American Horror Story: Hotel.” On Feb. 11, Netflix released a documentary about the hotel and one of its most mysterious cases. 

Built in 1927, the Cecil Hotel was once a luxury destination, but fell upon hard times once L.A.’s “containment policy” for the homeless placed the hotel at the edge of a “skid row.” It soon became a cheap hotel for people who had nowhere else to go. Other than the known residences of serial killers, in the present day, this hotel is used as an apartment for people newly out of jail or with crime records that prevent them from being able to own or rent a home. An LAPD officer giving commentary for the show revealed that there were at least 1-3 calls a day from the Cecil Hotel, likely a result of both the hotels guests and the dangerous area in which it is located. 

The four-part documentary series focuses on the disappearance of Elisa Lam. Elisa had been traveling on her own, and went missing under mysterious circumstances. The only evidence was elevator camera footage of Elisa exhibiting strange behaviors. All items of value had been left in her hotel room. Nineteen days after her death, she was found in the hotel’s water tank. Her case began to arise questions about the way the hotel is run. Given all the sketchy people and past events that have occurred in the Cecil Hotel, why is security so bad, and why are there no safety precautions for its guests? 

Overall reviews of this Netflix Original have been negative. The general consensus is that the documentary struggles to differentiate between telling a gripping true crime story, and delving into the conspiracy theories and supernatural elements. Arguably, this is true. The heartbreaking facts of her death were presented alongside historical facts about the hotel and commentary about the hotel and the case as a form of distraction. The show fails to fully present Elisa’s compelling and meaningful case before giving her justice for her tragic death.  Elisa Lam has family that loves and misses her, and the documentary continues to switch between history and conspiracies to her case, which allows viewers to begin to forget that Elisa Lam was a real person.

Lam’s death was ultimately ruled as a tragic accident by the LAPD, which sparked many additional theories of foul play, and sparked even more conspiracies, such as The Elevator Game, where a person presses buttons on an elevator and attempts to enter a parallel dimension. While the circumstances surrounding Elisa Lam’s death are nearly impossible to explain, like the inconsistencies in their autopsy report, the scratched out timestamp and missing seconds of the elevator security footage, or the difficult access to the rooftop and water tank she was found in, the Elevator Theory can be debunked. However, the possibility that Elisa Lam’s death was caused by a manic episode of her bipolar disorder, cannot. 

Overall, this series appears to be interesting to anyone interested in true crime. Low quality camera footage, supernatural conspiracy theories, and Elisa’s death mirroring a popular Japanese horror film. With Lam’s mysterious case, and legendary director Joe Berlinger, viewers would expect “Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel” to be much better than it actually was. All in all, the documentary was dull at times, confusing, and repetitive. The topic and story was interesting, but not presented well.