Lionsgate's Saw IV dominated the pre-Halloween box office weekend with an estimated $32.1 million opening resulting from a potent $10,088 per venue average at 3,183 theaters.  Saw IV managed to garner the best opening of any horror film in 2007 so far and clearly established its dominance in the grisly, torture-filled 'splatter' genre. Over the past three years the Saw sequels have been remarkably consistent while dominating the pre-Halloween weekend. Saw IV's opening was slightly behind Saw III's $33.6 million opening in 2006 and a bit ahead of Saw II's $31.7 million in 2005.

The Saw IV grabbed the lion's share of the horror film audience as last week's number one film, the vampire-themed 30 Days of Night, fell 58% to $6.7 million.  It should be interesting to compare 30 Days' second week decline to Saw IV's total next weekend -- 58% looks very bad at first glance, but these days anything south of a 60% drop for a horror film is a good thing.  30 Days has now earned $27.3 million and could finish with anywhere from between $35 and $50 million depending the velocity of its decline in subsequent weeks.

The 3-D reissue of Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas dropped just 37.2% in its second week, earning $3.3 million from just 564 theaters and averaging nearly $6,000 per venue.  The big question is will TNBC, which has already earned over $10 million in its 3-D reissue, continue to draw during the next few post Halloween weekends.