Horror remains king of the boxoffice. But instead of the jokey horror parodies that reigned last weekend, when Scary Movie 4 topped the list, this weekend an unapologetically spooky movie, Silent Hill, claimed the No. 1 position.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Sony Pictures' Silent took home the honors with an estimated $20.2 million. The Sentinel, 20th Century Fox's Washington-set thriller, opened in third place with an estimated $14.7 million, just behind Scary 4 at No. 2. But the weekend's third wide opener, Universal Pictures' American Dreamz, proved an inadvertent horror show, bowing to just $3.7 million for a dispiriting eighth-place finish.

In the absence of fresh large-scale rollouts of major studio titles, 20th Century Fox International's Ice Age: The Meltdown dominated the international boxoffice for the fourth consecutive weekend with an estimated $23 million from 5,486 screens in 27 territories. The animated sequel to 2002's Ice Age has grossed $317 million to date overseas, nearly double its comparable domestic cume. Its worldwide boxoffice tally now stands at $485 million. Meltdown opened in four territories, three of which were significant: Italy (an estimated $6.2 million at 644 screens), Japan ($1.2 million at 464 sites) and South Korea ($1.8 million at 234 screens). Notable holdover markets include the U.K., where it scored a whopping $3 million in its third weekend at 492 screens for a market cume of $42.7 million.