10 Biggest Plot-Changing Movie Phone Calls

Prior to A Nightmare on Elm Street, Wes Craven's films were more politically motivated and - despite their budgetary strains - felt academic. He was, after all, a humanities professor before he picked up his first 16mm camera. For Elm Street, an original idea unlike his previous works that were inspired by Ingmar Bergman and historical nightmares like the Sawney Bean massacre, he delved into his own personal demons.

Drawing on a series of L.A. Times articles about children of the Cambodian massacre dying in their sleep, his recollection of a high school bully and a creep who once stared at him through his window as a child, Craven ushered in a new kind of slasher. He was unrepentant, borne out of the secrets your parents kept from you, and he was probably a child molester in life.

His first final girl, Nancy Thompson (Heather Langenkamp) put an end to Freddy Krueger by removing all the power he garners from her fear. But prior to that, she is relentlessly tortured, first watching her friends get picked off one-by-one, then by her own alcoholic mother and see-no-evil cop father who turn her home into a prison. Surely, there must be something that springs her into action.

And it doesn't come without a cost: in this case, the death of her boyfriend Glenn (Johnny Depp). After sucking him into his bed and hosing his room with his innards, Freddy has his first out-of-character moment. It's true that we are unclear on the limitations of Freddy's abiliies in the first film, which suggest he can break through into our reality at will.

He does so in one of the film's most effective jump scares, calling Nancy on an unhooked phone to inform her of Glenn's fate and get a little tongue while he's at it.