Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel (Elisa Lam)

[Mobius]

Anyone watched this? Yet another 'documentary' from Netflix, this time about that Elisa Lam - a four parter with each episode being about an hour.

Won't spoil nowt in case people are keen to watch it, but I found it quite enjoyable. Found the conclusion at the end fairly believable but I'm not too clued up on it all, so keen to hear if anyone massively disagrees with their findings.

It's no Jinx or Making a Murderer, but worth a go if you're intrigued by the case

[Stoneage Dinosaurs]

Only know about this occurence from the Parapod episode it was on, but yeah sounds pretty fascinating

[Replies From View]

Really handy if you ache to see hubristic "youtubers" make-believing that they are criminal investigators who contribute more to society than their own projected narcissism.

Also a treat if you need to see one hour's worth of content painfully stretched over four of them.


I award it five Mr. Jelly Cookie Cutters out of five.

[MikkiDisco]

Watched it all in one day without ever really knowing why I was bothering. During the third episode, which is where they give far too much time of day to crackpot internet "sleuths", I may have broken my personal record for calling people fucking idiots the most times in one hour.

[PlanktonSideburns]

think that all the weird fascination with this 'case' is fucking horrible. child dies while not very well on holiday and people paw over the situation for creepy pasta type entertainment. can you imagine knowing or loving this person and every year a new bit of telly comes about digging it up again? do you think you could ever find closure? well done netflix

[Mobius]

Yeah the Web Sleuths and Youtubers were idiots. The documentary more or less said as much in the final episode. That one dickhead who got so attached to it then for 'closure' wanted to see Elisa Lam's grave... so got someone else to go there on his behalf and place their hand on the grave and film it all ... what a complete twat.

Completely agree on how harrowing it must be for the family, for a tragic death to be used for conspiracy and internet detectives. But you could really say the same for Madeline McCann, Zodiac victims, Dyatlov blokes... and basically everything. But yeah, can't really argue, it must fucking suck. Episode 3 is pretty much just made up bollocks.

Can definitely see why the conspiracy theorists were so into it though. Loads of mad weird coincidences and stuff. That TB test being called LAM-ELISA... like come on! The Hotel Manager seemed quite uncaring. The cops seemed a bit shit. The infamous elevator footage was really bizarre. Obviously you later realise it was almost certainly a bipolar breakdown of some sort, and just really sad.

Felt really for the Metalhead fella, although seems he's doing better now

[BlodwynPig]

Not particularly an interesting case once you've been over exposed to it. There are far darker and more mysterious cases that the big media ignore or don't even know about. I wouldn't want Netflix documentaries on those. I'm looking for discarded VHS tapes in old houses or skips that I stumble upon and then have to purchase a VHS player from a guy in Kansas to watch.

[Custard]

I found it scary when wetmovie1 went there to piss about in the elevator
https://youtu.be/NoP39sum7so

[pigamus]

think that all the weird fascination with this 'case' is fucking horrible. child dies while not very well on holiday and people paw over the situation for creepy pasta type entertainment. can you imagine knowing or loving this person and every year a new bit of telly comes about digging it up again? do you think you could ever find closure? well done netflix

I'm intrigued by this "creepy pasta type entertainment"

Is it the carbonara thing again

[surreal]

Not particularly an interesting case once you've been over exposed to it. There are far darker and more mysterious cases that the big media ignore or don't even know about. I wouldn't want Netflix documentaries on those. I'm looking for discarded VHS tapes in old houses or skips that I stumble upon and then have to purchase a VHS player from a guy in Kansas to watch.

Examples?  Always interested in stuff like that

[bgmnts]

think that all the weird fascination with this 'case' is fucking horrible. child dies while not very well on holiday and people paw over the situation for creepy pasta type entertainment. can you imagine knowing or loving this person and every year a new bit of telly comes about digging it up again? do you think you could ever find closure? well done netflix

Netflix just wholesale dipping into youtube like.

Not particularly an interesting case once you've been over exposed to it. There are far darker and more mysterious cases that the big media ignore or don't even know about.

I mean its not really a contest but the footage of her stumbling around the lift does send chills up my spine

[BritishHobo]

Very much got 'Don't Fuck With Cats' vibes from this, and it made me wish somebody would just do a documentary that's actually about these ghoulish wannabe-Sherlock cunts rather than the poor dead people whose dignity and memory they routinely trample over in their desperation for glory.

The ones who actually went to the hotel and fucked about in her room and the lift were truly the pits. Pressing all the buttons she pressed. It just showed they have absolutely no conception as to how a death is actually investigated. One of them enthusiastically explained how they figured out that the video was filmed on the fourteenth floor. And on the fourteenth floor... get this... there's a ladder up to the roof, where the water tank is! WHERE THE POLICE HAD ALREADY FOUND HER BODY. Oh well done Poirot. You really cracked that case. And did you know if you examine the footage of the JFK footage, you can see the car doors? Which means he would have used the car doors to get into the car!

CUNTS.

[PlanktonSideburns]

Completely agree on how harrowing it must be for the family, for a tragic death to be used for conspiracy and internet detectives. But you could really say the same for Madeline McCann, Zodiac victims, Dyatlov blokes...

agree

[imitationleather]

Very much got 'Don't Fuck With Cats' vibes from this

Reading people talk about this series really reminded me of that pile of shite, which is why I've not watched any.

[PlanktonSideburns]

Obviously you later realise it was almost certainly a bipolar breakdown of some sort, and just really sad.

im assuming that netflix did their usual bit here of not mentioning that the thing that they keep slowly zooming into with scary music over the top is actually someone having a breakdown until episode 7?

[BlodwynPig]

Examples?  Always interested in stuff like that

there is a thread for that, sorry very tired to find it - been in an ambulance

[BlodwynPig]

I mean its not really a contest but the footage of her stumbling around the lift does send chills up my spine

Yes, on initial viewing and in the absence of reason. But in the absence of reason or context, a young man smelling wild garlic in a woodland could look sinister and creepy.

[Viero_Berlotti]

The most disturbing thing about this show was the way Americans pronounce Cecil.

[bgmnts]

Yes, on initial viewing and in the absence of reason. But in the absence of reason or context, a young man smelling wild garlic in a woodland could look sinister and creepy.

This is true.

Hope you're not sick or wounded or anything btw, vis a vis the ambiwlans.

[BlodwynPig]

This is true.

Hope you're not sick or wounded or anything btw, vis a vis the ambiwlans.

Another false heart attack, although the initial ECG said "massive fucking heart attack" and the medic scrumpled it up and said "let me shave you and start again"

[Mobius]

im assuming that netflix did their usual bit here of not mentioning that the thing that they keep slowly zooming into with scary music over the top is actually someone having a breakdown until episode 7?

More or less, yeah. They basically wait until the end to tell you the cocktail of drugs she was on, and that her sister said she did mad shit all the time.

The theories throughout the episodes of what had happened relied on the fact that the lid thing of the water tanker was closed when she was discovered (how could she have closed it? someone must have put her in there) only for them to reveal in the final episode that 1 cop had misspoke and it wasn't actually closed.

The more I think about it, the entire thing was pretty shit and disingenuous.

DO NOT WATCH.

[SpiderChrist]

Watched it all in one go last night. Dreadful crap that would barely have filled an hour of telly stretched to all fuck. Episode 2 contains the first mention of Lam's mental health issues, and it was pretty obvious at that point what the behaviour in the lift was all about.

Plus all the self-styled "internet sleuths" were utter cunts. Poor old Morbid.

[paruses]

Watched this and agree with everything so far. I knew about it from The Parapod which probably made it quite a nice meta-watch seeing how much of it was presented in bad faith. In itself it's a Channel 5 or CBS Catchup doco but far too glossy.

Like BritishHobo said it would be good to see a doco on these internet-sleuths. Could have gone a different angle with "in 20-whatever a young Canadian woman suffering from mental health issues died by misadventure and this is about the ghoulish narcissists who obsessed over it." I doubt the family or friends would have wanted to talk about it but it would be interesting (?) and maybe useful to show the effect that kind of thing has on other people. Doubt it would make any difference though.

I have a weird fascination watching them talk about their amazing processes and the way that they talk - "We have to get a copy of that report" and all that shit. Absolute arseholes.

Might have been interesting to look at the coincidences and put them in context alongside other similar weird stuff - law of large numbers stuff and all that - to show they're not that mad. But that would require a lot of effort and only really have an audience of one person in Wales[nb]Me[/nb], most likely.

In short - a wasted opportunity.

p.s. Love Morbid's video message he sent to clear up any misunderstandings. I laughed for a good couple of minutes. Maybe he had nothing else to wear and he was keen to get it sent soon as possible. He seemed alright. Like most people like that - deeply normal and a bit insecure.

[BlodwynPig]

Watched it all in one go last night. Dreadful crap that would barely have filled an hour of telly stretched to all fuck. Episode 2 contains the first mention of Lam's mental health issues, and it was pretty obvious at that point what the behaviour in the lift was all about.

Plus all the self-styled "internet sleuths" were utter cunts. Poor old Morbid.

There is one guy (can't remember the youtube name) who does loads of these dating back 5 or more years, or at least his first Lam one was back in mid 2010s. His first video was all over the place, aliens?! drug lords!? ghosts!? - fast forward 5 years and his last video on the matter (after probably watching / reading up on more sobering evidence) was a mea culpa (without apologising for his shock jock crap) - all explainable, all very sad, all pretty dull in context.

[PlanktonSideburns]

been watching some rodney ascher documentaries this week

it seems to me that a perfectly healthy interest in the weird, the occult, in mysteries can easily slip into fantasising and projecting onto troubled people, with out any real interest in the (often more interesting and complex) reality of their lives

[bgmnts]

Why are people complaining about the ghoulish nature of obsessing about awful crimes and mystery solving when there is a sensationalist pointless doc about murderers and criminals every day and people lap it right up? Is it bexause its young people on the Internet?

[paruses]

Why are people complaining about the ghoulish nature of obsessing about awful crimes and mystery solving when there is a sensationalist pointless doc about murderers and criminals every day and people lap it right up? Is it bexause its young people on the Internet?

I don't think the people commenting here lap them up - but might be wrong. Those things are generally very low budget filler tucked away on C5 or CBS or somewhere rather than Trending Now on one of the biggest streaming services in the world. For me it's the fact that this happened only 10 years ago and must be very raw for the family and this must be pretty hard for them to avoid, and it's pretty clear cut what happened and this is just making a sensationalist mystery out of something that's clearly not a mystery. The tragic aspect of it all is just a footnote to this money-spinner.

As for the young people angle - there was similar sentiment expressed towards the Cats doco and most of those people (the ones who hounded that South African guy to commit suicide) were near middle age  from what I remember (a bit younger maybe). The arseholes who were on this just come across as entitled and self-appointed seekers of the truth only serving their own egos.

[PlanktonSideburns]

Why are people complaining about the ghoulish nature of obsessing about awful crimes and mystery solving when there is a sensationalist pointless doc about murderers and criminals every day and people lap it right up?

thats why.

i guess i get more annoyed about it with netflix as they probably have a bit more control over what they make, and their high budget gives it a bit of a sheen of authenticity. i watched that tiger king one, and that felt like it was trying to be all highbrow with its aesthetics, but behaving with the journalistic integrity of a youtube conspiracy video.

i also think that with their massive reach and popuarity, they have a much higher potential to do damage to people than some youtube true crime series, but decide to nick their exploitative tactics all the same