There’s no point in expressing how impressed we are when a film is able to stay at the #1 spot for over 3 weeks in a row, but we’re too busy trying to figure out what it is about Buena Vista’s The Help that has netted the film over $100 million since its release 4 weeks ago.

Following the film’s meager $19 million weekend pull, the weekend’s three new releases were not too far behind. It would be good to note that The Help has made just over $125 million worldwide, which is nearly $100 million over the film’s production budget. (Sequel?)

Coming in at the #2 spot, the beginning of our political thriller season starts with The Debt, which opened at $12.5 million. Meanwhile, the two horror films of the weekend, Apollo 18 and Shark Night 3D were within pennies of each other, with Apollo opening at #3 with $10.7 million and Shark Night opening at $10.3 million.

Sadly, last weekend’s releases, Columbiana, Our Idiot Brother, and Don’t be Afraid of the Dark all had over a 22% drop and came in under the top 5.

Next weekend, expect a good show from Soderbergh’s Contagion, which is opening in over 3,000 screens. Also, you can see Lionsgate’s Warrior to be a fan favorite, while Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star will open to murmurs.

A couple years ago I named Christopher Young’s Drag Me To Hell as my favorite score of the year. It had all of the big, bold, bombastic sounds you think of with true gothic horror. What raised that score above its genre and made it stand alone as the best was its sense of fun. It very well could have been the theme music for the tea cups ride at Inferno-Disney.

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is a new horror film with a strong pedigree. It takes its cues from a more classical age of horror movies and the film’s score follow suite. The music sounds like it’s from another time and shares many of the trademarks of Young’s score. This is particularly evident with the opening title, which actually made me look at my iTunes to confirm I wasn’t listening to Drag Me To Hell.

Marco Beltrami and Buck Sanders have put together a very consistent sounding soundtrack for this throwback horror flick, in fact I often went ten minutes without realizing the track had changed. This ends up being a double edged sword for the album, on one hand I like what the music is giving me, so consistency means it is all gravy.

However, after the strong opening, the album never really hooks you again. You pretty much have heard everything dynamic this score has to offer in the first few tracks.

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This year’s Comic-Con International was looking like it would be a bit lame with studios like Marvel, Paramount, Warner Bros, and other big companies dropping out of the festivities entirely. That means we won’t be seeing massive lines for Hall H and a glimpse at Henry Cavill in the Superman suit or footage of Thor and Hulk whomping on each other.

Instead we’re getting some of the lesser known properties in that famous football stadium-sized room known as “Hall H” such as The Knights of Badassdom and Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil. With the very first day of programming for the ‘Con announced, it looks like we’re going to be getting just that, and a truck load of TV.

One good note is that all things Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1 will be in the early half of Thursday, leaving the rest of the weekend vampire free (except for those Southern vamps from True Blood).

Check out the full day’s schedule after the jump, and head to their official Scheduler app, so you can make official the things you want to see that weekend!

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As scary TV movies go the original 70′s Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark ranks pretty high. It manages to be quite harrowing and chilling without resorting to gore or other obvious means.

It was so scary good, in fact, that it attracted the interest of big time writer/director Guillermo del Toro who co-wrote and produced a remake. Now, thanks to the folks at MySpace (I know) we’ve got a trailer for the updated version to share with you.

This new one continues the scary trend but also shows what you can do without too much in the way of blood and gore. Although it does seem to be upping the “monster” quotient a bit from the original. Plus, the rest of the elements of filmmaking have obviously come a long way too.

Don’t be Afraid of the Dark, which features Katie Holmes and Guy Pierce, comes from Miramax who will release it January 21, 2011.

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