Halloween | Paul Dergarabedian | President | Exhibitor Relations Co.

The whole of horror history doesn't compare with the millions being made each week at the box office as studios churn out creepy-crawly products that inevitably top the list of moneymakers during their first week of release. Look only at the money made by The Grudge, which was based on a popular Japanese series: Made for about $10 million, it took in $40 million when it was released, the week before Halloween 2004. Or The Ring, another redo of a popular Japanese film, which cost $48 million and wound up pocketing some $130 million four months after its October 2002 release. And that's just at the theater. (Home video profits are difficult to get, since studios refuse to release the data.) See these numbers and you understand why The Grudge and The Ring will soon be followed by sequels.

"I have never seen a period this loaded with horror-thriller films, one after the next, where all are doing consistently well," says Paul Dergarabedian, president of Exhibitor Relations Co., which tracks box office receipts. "There are exceptions - there always are - but it's been a renaissance period. In the past 18 months we've seen not only numerous films in the genre, but they're doing well, and this is a genre that's still not taken seriously. People dismiss ­horror-thrillers as a B-movie situation, but they make A-movie money, and that's the bottom line."