Ten minutes into this puke-slick remake of Wes Craven's infamous 1972 revenge classic on rape, torture and murder, I knew this crapathon would give Watchmen a run for its money as this weekend's top box-office bell ringer. Such is the debased state of American moviegoing barely three months into the new year, a time when profits soar and taste sinks to sewage levels. Craven, influenced by Ingmar Bergman's Virgin Spring and the real-life Charles Manson murders, found creative ways to plumb the dark depths of human nature. And he did it with no cash. Remake director Dennis Iliadis, with a studio budget and a galling, glib cynicism, is merely cashing in. So when a fate worse than death befalls young Mari (Sara Paxton) at the hands of creeps, and her parents (Tony Goldwyn and Monica Potter) predictably seek vengeance, audiences with a brain cell left have only one choice: Look for the first exit on the right.

“All Along the Watchtower”

Jimi Hendrix got hold of Bob Dylan's early John Wesley Harding tapes and in late 1967 recorded a version of "All Along the Watchtower" with the Experience in London. Dissatisfied with that first development, Hendrix brought those tapes with him to New York in early 1968 when he began work on Electric Ladyland. Eddie Kramer, Hendrix's engineer at the time, told Rolling Stone that Hendrix "was still looked upon by his basically white audience as the mammoth black guitar hero. There was a constant fight within him to expand himself." Hendrix's successful take on Dylan's work has long been recognized by the songwriter. "I liked Jimi Hendrix's record of this and ever since he died I've been doing it that way," Dylan wrote in the liner notes to his Biograph box set. "Strange how when I sing it, I always feel it's a tribute to him in some kind of way."