Review On Cecil Hotel Netflix Show

Warning: this article contains spoilers for The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel.

Haunting. That’s the most accurate word to describe Netflix’s recent true-crime documentary. It’s not scary, by no means gory, it can’t be classified as horror. But it’s haunting. It’s a story that works its way into your head and nestles at the centre of your brain until it’s etched into your memory and you can only ask one question:

What happened to Elisa Lam?

And that’s exactly what they wanted to happen.

Now, the true-crime genre is a very delicate one. It takes expertise to enlighten the public and illuminate certain aspects of life they know very little about, and at the same time avoid exploiting a family’s pain for the entertainment of the masses.

Netflix dropped the ball on this one.

With the use of cheap narrative tricks and a lot of unnecessary information, Joe Berlinger turned what would have been must-see TV into something barely above reality TV trash.

In 2013 Elisa Lam was a 21-year-old Canadian student travelling along the west coast when she decided to stay at the Cecil Hotel in downtown LA. On the day she was supposed to check out — February 1, 2013 — her parents didn’t hear from her and immediately contacted the Los Angeles Police…