Although less well known than its rival Hammer , Amicus Productions left its own mark on the horror genre during the peak years of the British horror film in the 1960s and 1970s. Amicus's trademark was the anthology or portmanteau film, one comprised of four or five horror tales all linked by a framing story and often concluding with a revelation or a surprise pay-off. Amicus was much more short-lived than Hammer, being formed in the early 1960s, and only lasting for around a decade and a half until the late 1970s. Unlike Hammer, it was a speciality studio almost from the beginning, focusing on horror and fantasy subjects. But Amicus films usually rejected traditional gothic horror and mostly used modern day settings with a less fantastical air than Hammer's.