Coming from a completely unknown author, Kusakabe Matsuri (草壁祭), Gore Screaming Show is a horror visual novel centered on a creepy little girl terrorizing a rural town with her (hilarious) monster side-kick.

While it’s not exactly Silent Hill, Gore Screaming Show is among the very few *legit horror* visual novels out here as it actually concentrates on scares instead of romance, though it has a fair share of love too.

It offers a lot of disturbing, sometimes even terrifying concepts both of physical and sexual nature. However, unlike other works which delve deep into gruesome and perverse, its characters and story are actually surprisingly complex. The intriguing story, especially that of Yuuka (the little girl), really caught me off-guard as I didn’t expect this work to aim for anything else but shock value (just look at the name). Even the aforementioned romantic episodes are fairly well written. Not to mention the masterfully crafted ever-present tension and the titular gore (jesus christ it goes crazy at times).

My mind was particularly blown away by a really clever twist in the very last route which not only made me see the whole work in a different light, but gave me a whole new concept of ‘insanity’ to think about. It’s fascinating how a seemingly heartless villain could turn out to be among the most complex, captivating and ultimately touching characters I’ve ever had the chance to lay my eyes upon in fiction.

Special mention goes to character designs, which, done by one of my favorite artists, Meteo, are just a delight to look at… except when they are soaking in blood and guts, I guess.

Gore Screaming Show is one of the very few horror visual novels available and, along with Higurashi, it’s among the best. Suspenseful plot, creepy atmosphere, interesting characters, surprising twists, good erotic scenes (if you into that kind of thing), and even a few thought-provoking concepts leave little else to be desired here.

Positive:	Negative:
Great character designs	Routes other than Yuuka’s are just simplistic horror stories
Creepy suspenseful atmosphere
Interesting, likable characters
Yuuka’s dichotomy makes her into an amazing villain-heroine
Good story about suffering, hate and redemption
Excellent twist
Thought-provoking on criminal insanity and justification of evil acts