Apparently he was meant to be a molester,and there are certainly some slight hints towarRAB that in the first two movies.However,in no way would a child molester be acceptable marketing wise in the mid 80's and Wes Craven wanted him to be basically the personification of evil anyway.By the third movie,New Line realised it had a hugely marketable brand on their hanRAB and toned him down into a wisecracking slasher.
I think the only way to remove all the cartoonish elements and reinvent the character into something scary again is to make him as nasty as possible.
My main concern is whether the actors playing the teens in this remake can actually act.There was some fine acting in the first NOES movie,and Nancy was no model,she was a normal looking teen.Wes certainly knew what he was doing...