The Gaslight District: A Review
Written by Vi-Linh Nguyen | November 11, 2025
Glitch’s The Gaslight District promotional poster
In a world where humankind has found the secret to eternal life, the cost has turned them into rotlings—creatures that live in decadence but still feel all the pain of a gunshot to the head or the agony of eternal drowning for crossing the wrong person. This is the world of The Gaslight District, one of Glitch Studio's new pilots released on YouTube in April 2025. We follow our protagonist Melancholy, “Mel,” on her adventures to prove herself as the newest member of the Smiling Dead crime family, all while trying to uncover the secrets of her own origin.
To start, the visuals of the show are stunning. Every character that appears is distinct; even the rotlings, who all share similar features, display differences in personality. The main characters themselves are compelling—from Mel, Mud, and Ken the Butcher to Bread Head. Their motivations leave viewers asking just the right number of questions to make them want more. The world they live in, full of grime and what feels “abandoned by God,” is crafted to be worth exploring. The showrunners and crew have done an excellent job bringing this unique concept to life. The show leaves viewers wanting to know more: Who lives here? What makes some of these characters different from the rotlings? The Gaslight District is a standout addition to the watchlists of horror fans, mafia cinephiles, and urban fantasy enthusiasts alike.
Spoilers Ahead—Read on at Your Own Risk!
The first shot gives viewers both a taste of the show and some excellent foreshadowing: the protagonist Mel is shown from behind, followed by a murder of black crows flooding the screen. This opening immediately compels viewers to ask, Who is this? What’s with the crows? Why can’t we see this character’s face? These questions linger until we receive Mel’s narration, introducing the origin of this strange new world.
The story relies on familiar tropes from classic mafia films—car chases, secrets, and a plucky newcomer eager to prove herself to the Family—but the setting makes these tropes feel fresh. The grim, decaying atmosphere gives rise to beautifully disgusting characters like Ken the Butcher, Mud, Bread Head, and Mel herself. We meet them in the middle of a car chase because Ken needs to “teach someone a lesson,” to put it lightly. The audience is thrown straight into the action. The first question that arises is why the main cast is so intent on killing this particular rotling. The gang eventually catches up to their unfortunate target, but audiences must remember: the inhabitants of the Gaslight District have been granted eternal life. What is death to the deathless? This conundrum helps establish how fearsome the reputation of the Smiling Dead truly is.
The religious undertones woven throughout the show add a fascinating layer to its grimy and grotesque world. The Gaslight District is described as a domain “abandoned by God,” which explains the normalization of crime and hedonism among its residents, ruled by the Smiling Dead. There is also a prison called “The Inferno,” where punishments reference the suffering of sinners in the third circle of hell from Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy. A location called “Paradise Lost” is owned and maintained by mysterious beings known as the Virtues. The contrast between the rotlings and the Virtues is striking: while the rotlings are organic and decaying, the Virtues are clean, mechanical, and lifeless—an embodiment of artificial purity.
The angel, however, stands out as one of the pilot’s most haunting and memorable elements. The prophecy that plagues the inhabitants of the Gaslight District tells of an angel that lays an egg—an egg that will hatch the human destined to end the age of eternal life that the rotlings have cherished for ten thousand years. In the pilot, Mel’s sources describe the angel as frail, but this proves false. The angel is a massive, vulture-like creature that speaks to Mel in garbled riddles, hinting at her potential destiny as a child born from the angel itself. This connection becomes clear when the angel is injured, revealing that it has the same black blood flowing through Mel’s veins. Still, something feels off. There must be more that Mel—and by extension, the audience—does not yet know. The prophecy feels too straightforward to suggest that Mel will simply end the golden age of the Gaslight District.
Where could the story go from here? The final shot reveals that the rotlings of the Gaslight District have discovered Mel and the Smiling Dead’s deception. Moreover, Mel hesitates before the egg hatches, revealing that it was not the angel’s egg after all. What does this mean for Mel’s quest to uncover the truth of her birth? Given the Christian allegories that underpin the story, there may be more to the prophecy than it first appears. The rotlings fear the coming of the human as the end—the loss of their blissful eternity of hedonism and debauchery. But what if the human is more than that? What if Mel could usher in a new age for the rotlings? What if she could bring humanity back to those who lost it long ago?
For now, it’s just the pilot, and viewers will have to wait for the next episode. However, this introduction taps into a universal fear: the unknown. The prophecy only states that a creature with black blood will be born from the angel’s egg. It’s one of the leaders of the Cult of the Black Hand who warns others to fear it. Personally, I’m eager to see where Mel takes us next in The Gaslight District.
