Weekend Receipts: Paranormal Phenomenon

Not since Nia Vardalos spun her head around and vomited tzatziki in My Big Fat Greek Exorcism has one little overperforming underdog of an independent horror film so stunned the industry. Click on to find out more about the 5-figure-budget movie that possessed America this weekend, and the far pricier monsters it left whimpering in its wake.

1. Paranormal Activity

Gross: $22,000,000 (cume: $62,477,000)

Screens: 1,945 (PSA: +12.1%)

Weeks: 5

An unlikely David vs. Goliath story dominates today's box office news -- only in this legend, David is equipped with nothing but a consumer-grade video camera, and Goliath is a lumbering giant of a horror franchise whose strongest kills are years behind it. And voilà: A Hollywood myth is born, to the tune of $22 million. Next up for Paramount's interactive marketing department: The Paranormal Million Audience-Reactions Drive, in which the studio challenged moviegoers to send in one million grainy nightvision cellphone videos of adult males screaming like women and jumping into the laps of their girlfriends during some of the film's more suspenseful sequences. Come on, America! We can do it!

2. Saw VI

Gross: $14,800,000 (new)

Screens: 3,036 (PSA: $4,875)

Weeks: 1

Despite benefiting once again from the prodigious talents of veteran background actor's actor and new Movieline buddy Tobin Bell, the sixth installment of Lionsgate's cash cow has finally begun to show some wear-and-tear at its clumsily sutured seams. May I humbly suggest for Saw VII that they part ways with the creaky concept, and instead capitalize on Glee-mania by having Jigsaw stalk and trap a group of high school musical theater nerds on a class trip to Broadway? There's great potential to be mined from having Billy ride his little tricycle inside a subterranean meat locker as a terrified 14-year-old girl with a bear trap dangling over her head is forced to sing a tender rendition of "Send in the Clowns."

3. Where the Wild Things Are

Gross: $14,420,000 (cume: $53,960,000)

Screens: 3,735 (PSA: $3,861)

Weeks: 2 (Change: -55.9%)

Did this movie really only open last weekend? Why does it feel like it opened in late September of 1976? Detractors would probably suggest that's because they couldn't wait to put some distance between themselves and its hairy-navel-gazing gang of sad sack outcasts, but I'd argue director Spike Jonze simply succeeding in giving my wistful-nostalgia-bone a long and painful noogie.

4. Law Abiding Citizen

Gross: $12,713,000 (cume: $40,318,000)

Screens: 2,890 (PSA: $4,399)

Weeks: 2 (Change: -39.6%)

Conservative filmmakers and cineastes take note: As racist, unintentionally homoerotic, GOP shower-nozzle material goes, LAC is showing the kind of box office appeal that Fame just never quite mustered, making it an interesting case study.

5. Couples Retreat

Gross: $11,097,000 (cume: $78,213,000)

Screens: 3,074 (PSA: $3,610)

Weeks: 3 (Change: -35.6%)

This critically reviled, audience-championed reunion of Swingers' best brahs continues to perform ably, ushering in with it a bold new era of Speedo comedy due in no small part to the efforts of its prodigiously bepackaged breakout yogi, Carlos Ponce.

6. Astro Boy

Gross: $11,097,000 (new)

7. Cirque du Freak: the Vampire's Assistant

Gross: $6,300,000(new)

8. Amelia

Gross: $4,000,000 (new)

As for the rest of the Frosh Class of Oct. 23rd, we're sad to report all have performed towards the very bottom end of expectations. Shoddy Americanime, undead carnies, and treacly flight hero bio pics -- this was simply not your time.

[Figures: Box Office Mojo]