It is not strange that Michael Jackson’s This Is It made a lot of money, it is just strange that a horror movie was not number one on Halloween. It is even stranger that a Saw movie, who has owned Halloween in recent years, barely cracked the top five.

This Halloween weekend Paranormal Activity did it again, taking the number two spot with an estimated $16.5 million bringing its total to $84.8 million. Saw VI grossed a mere estimated $5.6 million, lifting its tally to $22.8 million in ten days. At its current pace the sixth Saw film’s final gross may not even match the opening weekend grosses of the previous four Saw movies.

Dimension Film’s re-release of Rob Zombie’s Halloween 2 in theaters only netted $475,000 brining its final theater totals to a disappointing $33 million. Other horror films that cracked the top ten this weekend were The Stepfather, Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant and Zombieland finally slipped to number 12.

Weekend Studio Estimates For October 30-November 1, 2009

1 Michael Jackson’s This Is It $21,300,000 ($32,509,000)
2 Paranormal Activity $16,540,000 ($84,780,000)
3 Law Abiding Citizen $7,303,000 ($51,385,000)
4 Couples Retreat $6,097,000 ($86,663,000)
5 Saw VI $5,560,000 ($22,824,000)
6 Where the Wild Things Are $5,081,000 ($61,800,000)
7 The Stepfather $3,400,000 ($24,748,000)
8 Astro Boy $3,035,000 ($10,891,000)
10 Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant $2,809,000 ($10,521,000)