Categories: Lifestyle

The reviews are in for the new Netflix series about a UBC student’s death

You might already have caught wind of it, but a new true-crime limited series recently premiered on Netflix Canada. What’s more, the narrative centers around the supposedly cursed Cecil Hotel in LA and a former UBC student’s tragic death there. Here’s how the internet is reacting.

The show is called Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel, and is actually currently trending at #1 on Netflix Canada right now. So, it’s obviously very popular, but what are the critics thinking about it?

Not that much, apparently. The culture publication Variety criticized the misleading nature of the series. LA Times more or less called it a ‘misstep’, and it currently holds a 57% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

And, we agree with them. Hot take time here, folks. Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel should have recognized that it actually had a much more interesting narrative revolving around mental illness, the pressures of modern life, and the supposed glamour of LA. Toss in the fact that Lam quoted some rather depressing writers like Palahniuk and Vonnegut on a frequent basis, and you’ve even got an interesting option for deconstructing modern writing.

Instead, we get an overwrought drama about a hotel on the edge of Skid Row, that had changed its name (it’s called Stay on Main) even before Elisa Lam arrived. One of the main complaints thus far from fans around the world is the show’s dependency on using ‘internet sleuths’ and ‘conspiracy theorists’ to explore the case.

Watch the series if you want, but don’t expect anything good, much less exemplary.

Alrighty, rant over. Have a great day, folks!