As big of Freddy fan that I am, I much prefer him being the dark, scary type evil villain. He was pretty scary and mean in the first two. The 3rd movie was very good, but he started to get funny then. It makes for a sick type villain who laughs at you and cracks jokes while he kills you, but stick to the bad ass stuff. Freddy is still considered one of the most powerful villains because of his psychic powers in the dream world though. I think the remake needs to portray him as the evil, sick, twisted villain he actually is.

As far as the current franchise .... I loved them all, but I rank them like this:

1) Nightmare on Elm Street 1
2) Nightmare on Elm Street 3
3) Nightmare on Elm Street 2
4) Nightmare on Elm Street 4
5) New Nightmare
6) Nightmare on Elm Street 5
7) Freddys Dead the final nightmare