In the 50's and 60's, horror cinema was either gothic or creature-features, involving monsters and other villains. Universal produced films such as 'King Kong' and 'Godzilla'. Hammer studios made films revolving around characters such as 'Dracula' and 'Frankenstein's monster'.
The main characters were mature adults, usually upper-class. It was the switch to working and middle-class, and younger characters in later horror/slasher films that marked a great change in how the films worked. These older films often look more theatrical and stagey, whereas later films featured a greater use of more 'realistic' settings.
Although a couple of the earliest slasher films, 'Psycho' and 'Peeping Tom' came out in 1960, fears over the violence in them led to the major studios to not dare releasing any imitators. It took the success of 'Halloween' and others a decade later for the sub-genre to really get going.
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