10 Awesome Horror Movie Villains With Stupid One Weakness

In 1984, Wes Craven unleashed his deepest fears on unsuspecting audiences - the spectre of a horribly burned demon-ghost with the ability to inflict mortal damage to people in their dreams. Freddy Krueger, before he became a one-liner spewing self-parody, was a truly scary thought inspired by stories of survivors of the Khmer Rouge massacre who died in their sleep.

But heroine Nancy Thompson realizes by the end of the first film that Freddy is very much like those guys with live chain saws at haunted houses - they're there to collect a paycheck and contractually can't make any physical contact with you. Essentially, if Freddy Krueger can hurt you, you probably signed a dream-waiver.

So Nancy refuses to be afraid of him, simply turning her back and making him vanish into the ether. Without the power of fear, he's just a guy in a corny costume. Had New Line Cinema not smelled franchise bait, the film would have been bookended with a satisfactory, happy ending, and A Nightmare on Elm Street would have been just that - one nightmare.