10 Best Slasher Films Of All Time

Mindful of the success that studios such as AIP were enjoying with low budget exploitation films, Alfred Hitchcock set himself a challenge: turning his back on star-studded, multi-million dollar blockbusters such as North By Northwest, he’d direct an exploitation picture of his own, only with decent actors, a quality script and his trademark visual flair.

Despite being turned down by Paramount, which forced him to shoot on the Universal lot using the crew from his TV show, the gamble paid off and Psycho became one of his most successful pictures. It was also the movie that took the horror film out of European castles and placed it squarely in the middle of America, where one of cinema’s most famous killers operated a run-down motel.

Based on notorious serial killer Ed Gein (“The Wisconsin Ghoul”) and Castle Of Frankenstein editor Calvin T Beck, Norman Bates isn’t a vampire, a mad scientist or a disfigured criminal but a seemingly ordinary (if socially maladjusted) young man, and one of the most important characters in horror cinema. From now on, filmmakers wouldn’t shy away from placing their stories in everyday settings.