Rob Price
Gutbrain Records
rob + gutbrain.com = email

2026 October 19 • Monday

For the 925th Soundtrack of the Week we've got The Golden Age of Horror Vol. 1, which contains music from three films scored by Elisabeth Lutyens: Dr. Terror's House of Horrors, The Skull and Paranoiac.

It starts with "Main Title/Strangers on a Train" from Dr. Terror's House of Horrors, which combines some Herrmannesque atmosphere with some unusual avantgarde guitar playing.

An Americana sound that would fit perfectly into any number of Westerns opens "The Werewolf", but this quickly switches over to eerie and dreadful underscore.

Another airy and sunny opening starts off "The Creeping Vine" before this, too, becomes a cue with interesting horror sonorities, as well as some melancholy themes. Lutyens gets a lot out of a small ensemble here, blending strings and percussion in novel and exciting ways.

The "Voodoo" track is all percussion, for instance, but elsewhere she'll blend in wood blocks or vibes or other difficult to identify percussion instruments with the strings and reeds.

"End of the Line" is also Herrmannesque in ways and very effective.

After the Dr. Terror's House of Horrors cues comes a selection from The Skull. The "Main Title" for this one is much more energetic and urgent, jumping out at the listener immediately and again with some unusual sounds, possibly a cymbalom or the inside of a piano.

"Auction Purchase" uses snare drum at first and then strings as a rhythmic foundation, which is continued in the beginning of "The book of the Marquis de Sade" before Lutyens lets them drop out for a feeling of emptiness, after which the strings return.

The strings dwell in high frequencies while double bass picks out some low tones amidst more evocative and fresh-sounding percussion and reed figures in "The Dealer's Nightmare", which also has some impressive dissonances.

Nobody writes music like this anymore. Could anybody even do it? "Theft" is perhaps the most Herrmann-like cue on the CD, with its ostinati and monomaniacal looped phrases.

For Paranoiac Lutyens gets more out of the flute for a lighter and brigher sound for the "Main Title" and then contrasts strings with church organ in a dissonant way for "Suspicion".

The romanticism of the strings is set against an obsessive percussive pulse in "A Discovery of Horror" whilte "Fiery Finale" brings back the organ for a subdued beginning before ramping up the intensity.