Without them, there is no documentary, so theyre not being inserted where they dont belong. The Elevator Gameurban legendis said to have originated from Korea and involves carrying out a step-by-step ritual in an elevator inside a building with at least ten floors.Players must go alone and they start by pressing the button for the fourth floor, then pushing buttons in the following sequence; second, sixth, second, tenth and fifth, whilst not getting out on any level. But not for the reasons you might expect. Get the best of Den of Geek delivered right to your inbox! Read Next: Unprisoned Star Kerry Washington and Showrunner Yvette Lee Bowser on How the Show Is an American Story About Healing, How Streaming TV Turned the Premier League Into a Great American Pastime, FIFA, Qatar and Cowardly Hypocrisy Has Sucked the Joy Out of Watching the World Cup, Pitch Perfect: Bumper In Berlin Is a Spinoff Without A Purpose: TV Review, Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel, Conversations With a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes,. All rights reserved. window.onload = function(){ Why not? Over the course of 10 hoursincluding follow-ups released in 2013 and 2018 (the latter, of course, for Netflix)The Staircase delves into extreme detail and allows us to explore our own theories. Vancouver pop duo The Zolas created a music video for their song "Ancient Mars" in 2014 that is set up to look like the last day of Lam's life,humanizing her as a regular young woman versus just someone suffering from mental illness. Netflix's latest true crime documentary explores a very strange case that has fascinated the internet for years. It's irresponsible and dishonest, indulging conspiracy theories that put already vulnerable victims at further risk. eventCategory: event.slot.getSlotElementId(), But after serving a mandatory 15-year sentence, Unterweger was granted parole. 22 hours ago, by Yerin Kim Vacillating Wildly From Dispiriting to Exhilarating, makeup tutorial and half murderous deep dive. When it comes to true crime, we need to be challenged, not flattered. Episode three of Crime Scene breaks down the dark case of Jack Unterweger. Management even rebranded part of the Cecil as a trendy youth hostel called "Stay on Main" to distance away from its unsettling background. In 1964,Pigeon Goldie Osgood was found dead in her ransacked room at the Cecil. The Cecil Hotel. eventCategory: event.slot.getSlotElementId(), Its possible that perhaps Lams odd behavior is her trying to activate a motion sensor in the lift, trying to get the doors to close and not realising that shed pressed the door hold button. Photo taken in 2013. People creeped out by the footage online have suggested various spooky theories including connections to the movie Dark Water, based on the story published in 1996 and the movie released in 2002 (they are eerily similar) and the elevator game a sort of urban legend where pressing various keys in sequence is supposed to give the player access to another dimension (heres a good explanation of the game and its heritage). WATCH: Do Uni Students Have Skin Care Routines? That same year, Hail the Sun, a post-hardcore band, wrote a song called "Disappearing Syndrome," which was inspired by her story as well. pg.acq.push(function() { While police did a fairly thorough search of the hotel after Elisa Lam was declared missing, including going on the rooftop, they did not actually search every room. Cecil Hotels nefarious past is back in the spotlight thanks to Netflixs latest true-crime documentary, Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel. Lam, also known by her Cantonese name, Lam Ho Yi, was the daughter of Hong Kong immigrants and had been staying at the hotel for less than a week by then. func(); by Sarah Wasilak Prior to that, he was sentenced to life in prison for murdering 18-year-old German sex worker, Margaret Schafer. '&l=' + l : ''; Her stay was to last three nights. Unterweger was interested in how the police managed street prostitution, even riding along with the LAPD. document.links = document.getElementsByTagName('a'); Photo: Nick Ut/AP/Shutterstock Netflix's Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel delves into one mysterious death, but the historic Los } ()); The CCTV footage was taken in an elevator in the Cecil on the 1 February and sees Lam behaving very strangely, pushing several different buttons, appearing to hide, then jumping in and out of the elevator and making some unusual hand gestures. Even before Elisa Lam's death, the hotel had ties to the Black Dahlia and Night Stalker. While it is difficult to explain the strange circumstances surrounding Elisa Lams death, such as discrepancies in her autopsy report or the near-inaccessibility of the rooftop and water-tank area to guests, The Elevator Theory can be safely debunked. But when does it become a problem if, to make the fan base feel more involved, people who would otherwise be part of the shows audience are needlessly inserted into the narrative? 17 hours ago, by Samantha Brodsky Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel is bloated, dull and confusing. Ramirez stayed at the Cecil in the middle of his murder spree from 1984 to 1985. Lam's corpse was seen floating naked, along with her clothes and belongings. In 1992, Unterweger was caught and extradited to Austria. Amid these early struggles for the Cecil, things took a turn for the worse in 1931, when the first documented suicide at the hotel took place. Unfortunately, Lams death isnt the only shocking occurrence connected to the Cecil Hotel, here are six more. },false) Making true crime fans the subject of a true crime documentary isnt necessarily a fatal flaw. In Crime Scene, weve become part of what were consuming. Its also possible that the lift behavior had absolutely nothing to do with her disappearance, odd though it was. Her case captivated crime obsessives the world over when the LAPD released a tape of her acting strangely in the elevator a tape thats been dissected and interpreted innumerable times ever since. Pauline Otton, 27, was fighting with her husband on the ninth floor and jumped out of the window. eventAction: 'load' Unterweger basically convinced everyone who mattered that he had changed. Its an intriguing mystery, but, at least based on Crime Scene, not enough to be the centerpiece of a four-hour series. Photo: Netflix. Goldie Osgood was a retired telephone operator who lived in the Cecil. Whether or not the Cecil is haunted by ghosts, it has been haunted by a history of guests who were troubled or down on their luck. Initially sharing a dorm with several other girls, Lam exhibited some erratic behaviour including leaving odd notes on the other girls beds, until eventually she was moved to her own room. The morbid reputation of the hotel, along with the unsettling elevator footage that echoes a creepy urban legend, contributed to the popularity of this particular theory. 6 Disturbing Moments In The History Of LAs Cecil Hotel, The Cursed Star Of Netflixs New Doco, Heads Up Weirdos, Netflixs Doco About LAs Notoriously Fucked-Up Cecil Hotel Drops Tonight, American Murder: The Family Next Door, Netflix's Latest Crime Doco, Is Utterly Devastating. if(document.querySelector("#ads")){ Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel delves deep into the details surrounding the Elisa Lam caseand the cryptic security footage of her that was released, which prompted numerous conspiracy theories surrounding her death. But it's none of these things. eventAction: 'click_ads' var all_links = document.links[t]; display: none !important; So its really too bad that it takes three full episodes of melodrama and rampant conspiracy theories before Crime Scene shows its ultimate hand. var oldonload = window.onload; Marie Claire is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. From director Joe Berlinger, previously of Netflixs Conversations With a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, Crime Scene introduces several narrative threads without tying them together until its too late. It's a technique that's borderline dangerous. Some people think its part of a cover up a plot perhaps between the police and the Cecil but the officers who worked the case insist its not that. The roof of the Cecil can be accessed by an exterior fire escape ladder and also by an alarmed door. By signing up, you agree to Pedestrian Group's Terms of Service and consent to our Privacy Policy. Egged on by the same type of internet sleuths who are given a huge, uncritical platform in this documentary. reporters on a platform technologically tailored to meet the needs of the modern reader. Netflix. She arrived in Los Angeles on January 26. She is also a contributor to High on Films & Fansided, and an editor at Digital Mafia Talkies. With a long history writing in the field of consumer tech, she now also writes on topics from entertainment to parenting, lifestyle, marketing, and business. You can trace the lineage of the recent boom in true crime series back through Making a Murderer to 2004s The Staircase, the eight-part documentary about the murder trial of novelist Michael Peterson. Robyn Designed to make shopping easier. While we were all still reeling from the docs released at the end of last year (The Ripper, anyone? These shows were part of the movement that made true crime more accessible and attractive to a wider, perhaps more sophisticated, audience. While on parole, Unterweger strangled nine sex workers to death in both Austria and Los Angeles. Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel explores one of the more bizarre theories to have emerged surrounding Elisa's death, which is that she was engaged in The Elevator Game, a creepy ritual that plays out as a game in order to access an alternate or parallel world. Grainy security footage shows Lam, spooked and strange, in an elevator communicating hysterically to another person? Her poetry has been published in a wide array of journals, such as Gideon Poetry, White Noise Magazine, and Literaria. It's bad. Ramirez was a serial murderer and a serial rapist, who claimed he was inspired by Satan. NEXT: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel Reveals The Danger Of Online Sleuths. Episode two of Crime Scene especially unpacks how the hotel's dark past marred its reputation. if(all_links.href.search(/^http/) != -1 && all_links.href.search('www.pedestrian.tv') == -1 && all_links.href.search(/^#/) == -1) { ga('ads.send', { Over the years, the Cecil has earned unsavory nicknames such as "Hotel Death" and "The Suicide." Based on Elisas bizarre behavior and hand gestures as seen in the elevator footage in Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel, and the fact she was seen hitting multiple buttons at once, conspiracy enthusiasts were convinced she was playing The Elevator Game and that the ritual went wrong. In 1962,Pauline Otton, 27, jumped from the ninth floor window of Cecil Hotel after an argument with her estranged husband. People discovered her in a rather gruesome manner: somebody had cut her entire body in half and created incisions from the corners of her mouth. Are We Finally Ready to See One of the 90s Most Acclaimed Bands for What It Really Was? The mystery of why the door didnt close might not be that mysterious after all youtuber John Lordan who became obsessed with the case and visited the Cecil to try to make sense of various aspects found that one of the buttons Lam pressed was the door hold button, which would keep the doors open for 2 minutes. Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel delves into the death of Elisa Lam, a 21-year-old who disappeared while staying at the titular downtown Los Angeles The documentary leans into the verdict that it was an accident that Lam was having an episode brought on by not taking her medication for bipolar, that she climbed out of the fire escape, climbed up the outside of the building, got into the water tank, removed her own clothing, was unable to get out (assuming she tried) and drowned. Who can tell? He was sentenced to death, and remained on death row until he died of liver failure in 2013. Some think its haunted but even if you reject that, its certainly been the centerpoint of some very dark activity well before Elisa Lam checked in. In September 1985, just 12 hours after the Los Angeles Police Department issued an all-points bulletin identifying him as their prime suspect in the slayings, Ramirez was chased down and beaten by a mob of civilians as he tried to steal a car. Send me updates about Slate special offers. He presented himself as a journalist from Austria on an assignment to do a story about red-light districts in Los Angeles. Its a shame that it takes so long for the show to understand what makes this particular crime scene compelling or, even worse, that it relishes validating the most salacious details and theories before deigning to do its case, and the woman at its center, true justice. In addition to the Tumblr blog Nouvelle-Nouveau, which receives a lot of attention in the true crime docuseries, Lam also had a blog on Blogspot called Ether Fields, which she started in 2010. .postid-1764461 .panel-signup { //