The Last Horror Show at Backlit is a creepy yet curiously dark delight

I absolutely love Halloween and horror, so no one had to twist my arm to get me to attend The Last Horror Show at Backlit Gallery. It felt distinctly Halloween-ish to walk through the dark, back streets of Sneinton into an old factory building and up the winding staircase to the sounds of blood-curdling screams. 

The show is a creepy triumph of the macabre housed in a specially darkened gallery space. Forget the white walls of most galleries, this is all about embracing the darkness. The incredible collection and curation of the artists on show means there is more than meets the eye when viewing this exhibition, which has been five years in the making.

Horror is having a moment,it has matured from jump scares and ghosts to so much more. Modern horror examines the concept of ‘otherness’ which is what makes this show so compelling. This is what gives it a depth beyond the surface supernatural.

The idea of otherness cleverly taps into queerness, identity, mental health, the role of women and people of colour within horror. The screams that welcomed us into the building were made by Nottingham artist, Gina Birch who is fresh from exhibiting at the Tate Modern for their Women in Revolt show. Birch began screaming in the seventies as an art student and hasn’t really stopped. Her series of screams are filmed at different stages in her life. Twenty years after her first in 1997, she revisited the scream at the start of the Riot Girl movement by performing another.

“I felt inarticulate. I didn’t know how I was thinking or feeling. I had moved from Nottingham to London so I felt like a fish out of water. I wasn’t angry but I had discovered feminism. There was a sense of not understanding who I was,” Birch said. “I didn’t know how to express this in any other way so it culminated in those feelings.”

Birch is also one half of the punk band The Raincoats, with Ana DiSilver. Incredibly she has not shown her artworks in Nottingham before, despite being from her, although she has performed here with The Raincoats. She says the band helped her to form the second scream.

“I formed The Raincoats and we could shout, yell and play our bass loudly. We made a racket! A lot of people found us quite unlistenable but those who loved us, loved us.”

“When Riot Girl started, we were going to be playing some shows so we thought we would get out our old art school films. At this time, I wondered what it would be like to do another scream. How would it be different? How am I different?”

She added: “I found I didn’t feel so inarticulate because I had found the voice through music and records. I was much more aware of who I was, so I could scream out and get in your face more rather than being a pigtailed girl. I did another in 2017 which was more aggressive in a way. I was thinking more about horror films for that one.”

Viewing, and listening, to the scream is a full-on experience, and one that immediately brings to mind the classic female screams of the genre, such as Janet Leigh in Psycho (1960) or Shelly Duvall in The Shining (1980). On longer viewing, it touches on the full-body horror of films like The Substance (2024) which look at the female experience of the body, physicality and aging.

The screams have been shown on white wall galleries in the past. However the dark makes a huge difference to how it is viewed.

“I’m really pleased and very proud. The curators here have put it in a dark room and it sings. The other galleries where this has been shown have been in a well-lit room, but here, because it’s a spooky show, it works,” Birch said.

There is also local representation from Kim Thompson. Thompson is one of Nottingham’s best and has a portfolio steeped in horror references. She brought to life the story of Medusa but gave it a feminist twist in her signature style. 

“I think there is something about the genre that is so appealing, particularly to people who don’t fit within the boundaries of society at times, such as marginalised people. So as a Black, queer person, there are elements of horror characters that are on the fringes of society which are appealing,” she said.

“I do a lot of work about women being villainised from a horror perspective or a female gaze perspective. The piece I made is from a series on Greek mythology and the ways that women are demonised and colonised, in ways that are unjust and patriarchal.”

She added: “It’s a Medusa revenge story. In brief, she was punished for a sexual assault and turned into an alleged monster. I wanted to reframe that and for her to have the power to take revenge and not be the villain of the story. I don’t think she is.”

The exhibition also includes an exclusive from Justin Simien, an LA-based writer, producer and director. His second feature, Bad Hair (2020) premiered at Sundance and was acquired by Hulu. He also has Disney connections as they released his third feature, Haunted Mansion in 2023. The photograph, a still from Bad Hair, brings back memories of watching the film, The Ring. An unsettling piece. 

Another must-see piece is the life-sized, fleshy alien housed in a back room. The unsettling life-like quality of the piece, which was made in 1995 by special FX artist John Humphreys (Alien Autopsy and Willy Wonka) means you will feel an overwhelming urge to poke it. It’s okay to admit this and also unsettling to touch. 

We left the exhibition feeling that glorious unsettled, creepy feeling that comes with viewing a good horror movie. The feeling that we had taken a sneaky peek into the depths but secretly relieved we had come out in one piece. 

The Last Horror Show exhibition runs from Saturday 26 October – Sunday 8 December, Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, from 12 – 5 pm. More details here.