By Kofi Outlaw

It seems audiences by the droves bit into vampire flicks this past weekend, as Sony Pictures’ 30 DAYS OF NIGHT (see my review here) captured the box office’s top prize, earning a much needed $16 million for the studio, which debuted the movie in 2,855 theatres. Not surprisingly younger males accounted for the majority of ‘NIGHT’S audience, proving that horror films $till have some life in them yet.

Box office success seemed limited to members of the undead however; overall the box office performed poorer than usual for this time of year, with many audiences seeming to forgo any flick that didn’t offer blood and gore. (Hey, sometimes we just get into those kinds of moods.)

“The movie is really scary. It’s visceral and it’s in your face,” Sony prexy of distribution Rory Bruer said. “It was the type of movie that brought out the latenight crowd.”

This week’s other openers wish they could have drawn ANY crowd. Political drama RENDITION starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Reese Witherspoon and Meryl Streep recouped a measly $4.2 million of its $30 million budget, reinforcing the opinion that post-9/11-themed films equate to tough sells at the box office. Miramax’s GONE BABY GONE earned $6 million to take the No. 5 spot, no doubt due to its strong critical acclaim. Fox Atomic’s THE COMEBACKS came in just behind ‘GONE to earn the No. 6 spot with $5.8 million. The art-house drama THINGS WE LOST IN THE FIRE, starring both Halle Berry and Benicio Del Toro, failed to crack the top ten.

If the October trend holds, the success of 30 DAYS OF NIGHT will be welcome bit of news for Lionsgate studios, who will release SAW IV (if it’s Halloween, it must be SAW!) this week.