Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel (2021) Series Review

Last month Netflix announced this new documentary called Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel and it had many intrigued including myself and that is why today I sat down and watched the four episodes for the documentary and here is my review for it. The premise of the documentary sees in 2013 a young girl go missing from a hotel, but this hotel has a shady history. 

First onto the positives, this is a really harrowing case and when the investigators are taking you through it you really feel for them and you go through the same mindset as them. The case starts off in a really interesting way and I can't deny that it sucks you in and makes you investigate with them. 

It also helps that this hotel is actually really interesting. Some of the guests that have stayed there are outrageous and some of the harrowing things that have happened there is like something out of a movie it is that crazy. I wish this could have been explored more as I couldn't believe this hotel was allowed to operate and stay open when all of the things ae revealed. 

But this show really falls flat, it feels like there was enough content for a couple of episodes but they wanted to stretch it out and it just felt like there was plenty of unnecessary content here to do with elements of LA and it felt like it didn't really feel like it had to be here. 

This show also falls apart when it introduces this group of youtoubers who feel like they are only here to try and promote their channels and it becomes really annoying and they don't really add much to the whole thing. In fact the show does a good job in showing how terrible these people were and people continue to be even though I don't think that was their intention. 

This show also relies on lots of speculation and theories without supporting evidence. It just feels like we're watching a group of people who aren't experts give their opinion that really doesn't matter and that nobody cares about. 

Overall, this show has a really interesting start and idea but it just doesn't know how to execute and that is why for me it really falls flat and ends up being very average despite a strong start. 

Rating - 5/10