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Edwin Davies: They seized on a product that plays on the general malaise that people have started to feel towards found-footage films in general and Paranormal Activity in particular. These sort of spoofs are always relentlessly mean-spirited and go for cheap gags at the expense of things that are a part of the zeitgeist, and this one has hit at just the right time. Much as the original Scary Movie managed to make hay out of Scream and the post-modern slasher films that emerged in its wake, this one takes very broad swipes at a specific target that a lot of people have grown bored of, or just plain hate. They also found a weekend in the doldrums of January where there wouldn't be much competition (I am assuming that it held this release date before Gangster Squad was moved) so it gets to benefit from being some new product, much as Texas Chainsaw (Massacre) did last week.

I get the feeling that most of the people who were desperate to see this have probably already done so, and these types of films have a tendency to dive right over the precipice after the first weekend, but the numbers don't lie. $2.5 million budget versus $18.1 million weekend. That's a win.

Felix Quinonez: I think someone made a deal with the devil.

Brett Ballard-Beach: Scary Movie helped to unleash the future makers of Date Movie, Epic Movie, et al upon this and now a Wayans is just reclaiming the throne for the family. This opened about the same as a lot of Friedberg/Seltzer's films (who by the way have The Starving Games in post-production) which shows that there about two million or so people who are consistently fine with paying their bucks to watch 76 minutes of gay jokes and ***-slappin' jokes, and 10 minutes of really slow credits. And that is their Constitutional right (I checked). For its distributor, this is impressive. I guess it could be like their Twilight, if they choose to make four more at such low costs, to similar results. Even if it goes off the cliff, $35 to $40 million is likely.

Kim Hollis: I am blown away by how well this film did. It looked terrible. By all accounts it is terrible. I can't begin to imagine who would want to see it. I don't even think Open Road marketed it that well. I guess people just wanted some dumb comedy, and A Haunted House certainly delivered.

David Mumpower: This movie is like a 99 cent taco in that the quality of the product doesn't matter as long as it gives the customer exactly what they want. Yes, it's cheap and you probably do not want to see the ingredients yet there is a reason why Taco Bell is ubiquitous. The strategy works. I also believe this opening weekend says a lot about how much satire is welcomed when a genre hits the rut Edwin described. The timing was right as January has already featured an instantly forgettable horror movie on the heels of what felt like a hundred of them in the second half of 2012. What I particularly like about A Haunted House is that it steals Scary Movie 5's thunder three months ahead of time and at a fraction of the price.

To a larger point, Open Road Films is probably the the best story in Hollywood that nobody is noticing. After missing with Killer Elite, the Regal/AMC joint venture has returned $208.9 million against a capital outlay of $58.5 million. That's insane profitability and since the exhibitor IS the distributor, there is not the regular revenue sharing issue with box office receipts. I feel like I'm making this post every three months or so but there is a reason for that. This is half a dozen consecutive films that have grossed at least double their production budget with the ratio for all of them around 3.6 and growing since A Haunted House isn't done yet.

Max Braden: If audiences are hungry for dumb comedy, I think this is good news for Movie 43.

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