“The Gaslight District” is a show that released its pilot episode April 18 on YouTube, made by the famous indie animation studio Glitch, the creators of equally popular animation shows such as “Murder Drones” and “The Amazing Digital Circus.” Only one episode of this new show is available, and overnight it accumulated over three million views on YouTube, currently surpassing over 10 million views. This type of traction is what most streaming platforms can only dream of having for new shows that they create, which is no surprise that Netflix made a deal with Glitch to release new episodes of “The Amazing Digital Circus.”
Why did “The Gaslight District” gain this much attention on the internet over such a short time? Similar to its animated sister shows, the pilot of “The Gaslight District” has an aura of psychological horror mixed with comedic moments to make the audience not think too deeply about its dark messages until after the episode, when you reflect on what the heck you just watched.
The pilot starts out in this post-apocalyptic world where all of humanity has wasted away into these undying freaks made up of dissolved green flesh or wastes of the world like mutated monster fly men. A dark yet interesting way to depict what I assume is a never-ending limbo for the rest of what is left of humanity. Heaven has been depicted as this authoritarian robotic organization that rules the gaslight district, with its angels made to look like giant crows. I find that detail intriguing since crows represent death, an idea that seems to be nonexistent in this fictional world and unwanted by its residents, who want to continue living in their destructively dysfunctional society.
The main plot of the episode is what drew me in, when we, the audience, learn about how there is a prophecy of a human with black blood that is told to bring the end to the immortal world of the abnormal criminals who live in the Gaslight district. To make the human have black blood instead of red was a chilling artistic choice to further isolate whoever the human is, making it seem their blood alone is a poison that is a toxically destructive force, as they are described as in the prophecy. It is immediately revealed in the first five minutes of the episode that the human is our main character: Melancholy Hill, Mel for short, secretly living with a known crime family, “The Smiling Dead,” made up of Mud, Breadhead and a loving adoptive father with an ax in his head, Ken the Butcher. I get very amused watching how they are the classic group of insanely violent killers with no regard for their actions, where Mud is the sniper of the group, made of green melting goo, and Breadhead is a bread man with a comically large loaf head. They are chaotically funny to watch, but beyond that do not have much depth to them as characters when compared to Mel and Ken. The duo has a very wholesome father-daughter relationship shown throughout the episode, where Mel wants to join her father’s gang to gain his approval, while Ken is trying to keep his daughter’s identity of being human a secret so she can remain alive.
I love how, even though it is just one episode, the motivations of these characters play out in a natural way of how they interact with each other without it feeling too rushed. It also helps that the pilot is animated in a way reminiscent of stop motion animation, from the character designs to the way they all move around. It gives the viewer a feel that they are watching a longer-paced animated episode like “Gravity Falls,” even if they are around the same watch time. Replicating the look of stop motion gives the show that added layer of creepy horror viewers get from watching something made by Tim Burton.
Overall, I highly recommend watching the Gaslight District for that studio’s smooth animation alone. But also for how intriguing it is as a whole. The episode made me crave to know more about the world, its characters, and where the story will go next.
