'Nightcrawler' and 'Ouija' In Dead Heat Over Halloween Weekend

There weren't many new movies to see on Halloween weekend, and not many people out and about on Friday, at least, to see them--and so it came to pass that this weekend was one of the slowest of the year so far, with the top five films earning a mere $48 million between them.

Neck and neck for first place were Nightcrawler and last week's #1 Ouija, both of which earned $10.9 million. Nightcrawler's weekend total is currently sitting at $9,000 more than Ouija's, but Ouija could easily overtake that once final numbers come in. That's a pretty big surprise, as low-budget horror movies don't tend to have legs after their first weekend. Something about their intended teenage audience having short attention span--look, a butterfly! Also working against Ouija is the fact that it's really, really bad--its Rotten Tomatoes rating is a wince-worthy 8%, and our own reviewer called it "one of the laziest, least frightening mainstream horror movies in recent memory." Moviegoers, there are multiple good movies coming out next weekend, so if Ouija's still in the top five then so help me, I am done with all of you. Nightcrawler was more positively received by critics, and the $10.9 million it managed to earn is pretty good considering the less than mainstream nature of the film.

As far as other new releases are concerned, Before I Go to Sleep was a huge flop, earning only $2.03 million. That's $1.72 million less than the opening weekend haul of fellow Clarius Entertainment film Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return, which, as a reminder, is this:

So good on you, Before I Go to Sleep! You were beaten by that.

The Daniel Radcliffe-starring Horns pulled in a mere $104,000 on 103 screens--some people surely opted for VOD instead of seeing it in theaters, but hopefully not too many people, because it's really bad. The 10th anniversary re-release of Saw earned a dismal $650,000 on 2,063 screens, for a per-screen average higher, but not much higher, than the infamous Oogielovers In The BIG Balloon Adventure. Er... congratulations?

For some silver lining to this dreary weekend, Birdman expanded from 50 theaters to 231 and saw its box office take jump nearly 82%. More theaters are being added next weekend, when animated superhero flick Big Hero 6 is going up against Interstellar for the #1 spot. Given the number of superhero movie digs in Birdman, I find that amusing.

Rounding out the top five were holdovers Fury (#3, $9.1 million weekend gross), Gone Girl (#4, $8.8 weekend gross), and The Book of Life (#5, $8.3 weekend gross). Au revoir, October. And you know what that means: