Well, look what the cat dragged in.
This weekend, “Puss in Boots” pounced on its competition, earning an estimated $34 million, according to box office analysts at Hollywood.com.
It was the best debut for a movie opening Halloween weekend since “Saw III” leaped over $33.6 million in 2006.
Behind “Puss in Boots” this weekend was supernatural horror flick “Paranormal Activity 3,” earning $18.5 million.
Moviegoers are fraidy cats, apparently.
I understand that Antonio Banderas’ voice is as irresistible to audiences as catnip is to cats, but something’s wrong here.
It’s Halloween, the blasphemous celebration of all things wicked, depraved and macabre. Don’t be a pussy cat.
If “Paranormal Activity 3” doesn’t do it for you, here’s five that will.
5. “The Blair Witch Project” (1999)
Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez’s groundbreaking no-budget mock-doc presents the “recovered footage” of three student filmmakers who disappeared in Burkittsville, Md., in an attempt to document the film’s titular legend.
Sparse in its narrative and camerawork, abundant in uncertainty, “The Blair Witch Project” demonstrates that the audience’s imagination is infinitely more horrifying than anything that can be filmed.
4. “The Sixth Sense” (1999)
M. Night Shyamalan’s twisty psychological thriller, which recently earned the 89th spot on the American Film Institute’s updated “100 Years…100 Movies” list, relates the story of troubled child Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment) and troubled child psychologist Dr. Malcolm Crowe (Bruce Willis).
Sear “sees dead people” — and you will, too, long after the film’s haunting conclusion.
3. “Psycho” (1960)
Although Alfred Hitchcock was notoriously considered the Master of Suspense before “Psycho” was released in 1960, the film’s infamous shower scene — perhaps the most renowned scene in cinematic history — effectively immortalized his status as such.
The movie stars Janet Leigh as Marion Crane and Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates. You’ll want to shower before you see “Psycho,” because you’ll definitely think twice about showering after.
2. “The Shining” (1980)
Stanley Kubrick’s psychological horror flick, loosely based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, recounts the story of author Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson), who takes a job as an offseason caretaker at the isolated Overlook Hotel with the aim to use the hotel’s solitude to write.
Famous for its pioneering use of slow, lurching Steadicam tracking shots, “The Shining” is anything but a haunted-house story, ruminating upon themes of madness, clairvoyance and, in a word, “redrum.”
1. “The Exorcist” (1973)
Directed by William Friedkin, adapted from the 1971 novel of the same name and based on the “actual” exorcism of Robbie Mannheim, “The Exorcist” is supernatural horror par excellence, depicting the demonic possession of Regan MacNeil (Linda Blair) and her subsequent exorcism by Father Damien Karras (Jason Miller) and Father Lankester Merrin (Max von Sydow).
There’s something horrifyingly plausible about the film. It’s otherworldly, to be sure, but what is most gripping is its human drama, whether it’s Father Karras’s loss of faith, Chris MacNeil’s parental love or her daughter’s fate. Either way, you won’t sleep after watching “The Exorcist” — it possesses you, and there’s no cinematic exorcism for this demon of a film.
Phil Sweeney is a 25-year-old English senior from New Orleans. Follow him on Twitter at @TDR_PhilSweeney. 
 
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Contact Phil Sweeney at [email protected]