If you have been on the internet, you’ve probably heard of the case of Elisa Lam. Her story has been told over and over again across YouTube channels. Personally, I believe that the YouTube Nick Crowley did a great job in exploring Lam. What do we know already about Lam? Lam was a young, Canadian woman who went missing in 2013. And her body was eventually found in the water tank of the hotel she was staying in. We know there’s a bizarre elevator video that always circulates “internet mysteries” videos. And we know that Lam suffered from bipolar disorder and it’s been determined that Lam is the reason Lam was in the water tank.
Did We Learn Anything New?
We also know there are mysteries surrounding this. How did Lam get to the water tank? Did she commit suicide or did she accidentally fall in? Some people believe in big government conspiracies and some believe in the supernatural. Any conspiracy you can think of has been exhausted over the internet. So, did Netflix’s Crime Scene: The Vanishing at Cecil Hotel tell us any different?
The Cecil Hotel Is Just a Hotel
The four-part series touched slightly on the history of the hotel. How massive it is. How it was originally built and what it had become throughout the years. We touched briefly on other crimes done in the hotel – as well as the fact that it’s the hotel that serial killer Richard Ramirez would stay at. Or that the Black Dahlia was supposedly at. These are things we all know. So, what did we really find out in this documentary?
We did hear testimony from those who actually worked at the hotel – reminding us that these are just people and this isn’t some ghost, murder house. It’s just a hotel that went the way of disrepair, like many large long-standing buildings created in the early 1920s that declined after the Great Depression. Nothing more, nothing less.
Pablo “Morbid” Vergara Is Just a Singer
One piece of information that stood out to me was the accusation against death metal singer Pablo Vergara aka Morbid. I think this piece of the story shows how desperate the internet can be to believe something that isn’t real that they would connect the disappearance and death of Lam to Vergara. Despite the fact that Vergara was in the Cecil Hotel one year prior to when Lam was there. I think what happened to him is maybe a sign that internet sleuths, though at times doing good; can be harmful in their quest to solve a mystery or “uncover the truth”. Sometimes, there is no mystery. And the Elisa Lam case is just that.
Rating: 3/5
Ultimately, I think the documentary’s primary job was to put this “mystery” to bed finally. To let people know that there isn’t anything to solve. It’s just a building. Lam’s death was tragic, but not some big government conspiracy. And the only thing I would say is that I hope if the Cecil Hotel is going to continue to operate, they put better security measures in place.
What did you think of Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel
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A girl with too many fandoms to count.
