The Gregory Horror Show: The Nightmare Begins (1999)
Animation Production: Naomi Iwata/Project Gregory Horror Show
Released by: Geneon Entertainment
Official Website: The Gregory Horror Show
Running Time: 73 Minutes
By Jeffrey Couto

Introduction

Just in time for Halloween, The Gregory Horror Show has managed to make its way in to the Japan Hero Labs. This computer graphic driven feature is without a doubt one of the strangest we’ve looked at in recent weeks with its macabre tale of lost souls set inside an house for weary travelers.

With Gregory, a demented and enigmatic mouse, as our guide let’s go in and wander around the halls of this rather strange anime series.

Story

"Gregory Horror Show is a CG-animated horror-comedy program, set in an alternate dimension and populated by surreal and imaginative characters, dominated by Gregory, the evil proprietor of Gregory House. On the surface, each inhabitant of this “hotel for lost souls” represents a universal, everyday fear. But even this appearance is camouflage -- the bright plumage of insecurity to hide inner conflicts and subtlety of character.

Gregory acts as your guide and host into this macabre, wacky world of compiled short stories. You will be surprised at each plot-twisting ending."-- The Gregory Horror Show Website

Review

The story opens as a weary traveler makes his way through a darkened forest. He was just returning home from the office, when suddenly he found himself in this strange place. Lost and confused by his situation he eventually manages to find shelter inside a frightening-looking building with a sign that reads “Gregory House”.

Here, he meets Gregory, a creepy mouse with a ominous laugh, who is in charge of this inn. Seeing that our traveler is tired Gregory offers him a room to stay in for the night. This marks the beginning of a journey that our traveler may not be able to escape from…

The Gregory Horror Show is one very strange piece of anime work. I’m not quite sure I’ve ever seen anything quite like it. Probably the most interesting aspect of the show is that it's told from a first point of view, so basically, we are looking at events unfold from the main character’s perspective. This is a neat way to narrate the story as it puts us right in the midst of the action, making it feel as we ourselves are interacting with the cast of spooks and monsters wandering the halls of Gregory House.

In many ways the Gregory Horror Show reminds me of old games that were made during the Sega Saturn, Playstation era. The ambience, the way everything moves, the character designs; It’s all very reminiscent of mid-90’s first person perspective video games like D and Myst. In fact the graphics feel very much as if they were taken directly from in-game cinemas, which adds to that video game feel. (Please note that there is a Gregory Horror video game, however, this game was released after the anime series had aired.)

The story in this DVD is built up slowly over the course of the 25 short episodes. It doesn’t seem like there is anything building up through the first 5 or so episodes, but little by little each event starts adding up to a bigger plot that ends up taking our lead character and us us an audience by surprise. The plot is very much ethereal in nature and deals with themes about life, death, and our state of existence across many layers of the universe.

I have to admit that I wasn’t sure if I liked The Gregory Horror show at first, but by the time it got to the middle episodes I was hooked and looking forward to each new chapter that came up. Typically I’m not a fan of horror shows or films with ghoulish imagery, but this one managed to grab me thanks to its very creative cast of characters and narration style. Some of the situations our hero found himself in were also very creative and unique, which helped make it more of a fun watch.

Now as I mentioned above the animation was very reminiscent of a mid 90’s video game cinema, let me explain what I meant by this. Basically, the CGI animation used for The Gregory Horror Show, is very simple and basic with cubed-shaped characters that have very few moving parts and background with limited atmospheric effects. The frame rate is also a bit uneven in parts with some being very smooth and others being a bit more jerky. I think that given the date that this series was produced in, this was a purposely chosen style for visually conveying the story.

Is this to say that the animation is not up to par here? Yes and no. On the one hand I think that The Gregory Horror Show could have benefited from smoother animation with CGI tends to make very easy to do, but on the other hand the way its done here adds to the overall feel of the series so to take it away might do more harm than good. I guess this is one of those things that will vary from viewer to viewer.

The soundtrack was appropriately spooky, with a lot of ambience music and chilling noises like screams and ghostly voices that fill the air with a sense of desperation and hopelessness for our hero. The voice acting was solid throughout with the actor who plays Gregory doing a good job in particular.

The DVD itself is nicely put together and features a couple of extras. The main extra would be the inclusion of four bonus episodes of Gregory Horror Show “Bloody Karte.” These are similar in format to the main feature although they feature a different storyline and slightly better animation quality. The DVD also includes previews for other Geneon products as well as information on toys based on the characters from the Gregory Horror Show.

The video transfer was nice and crisp with no noticeable defects or color bleeding. The audio is encoded with Dolby Digital 2.0 and it comes across clearly with no real issues or problems that I could pick up on.

Final Thoughts

The Gregory Horror Show was frightening good surprise. I recommend it to all fans that enjoy horror driven programs or dark comedies. The story is really fun once you get into it and the characters are strange yet alluring. Look forward to seeing what volume two has to offer and how it expands on the universe that is established here.

Jeffrey Couto