So “Paranormal Activity 3” opened huge this weekend, grossing $54 million to claim the records for the biggest October debut and the biggest opening ever for a horror movie.

This probably shouldn’t have come as a surprise, huh? The second one opened with $40.7 million last year, so obviously the audience was there for the latest chapter. I’m just surprised by the scale of it, since “The Thing” fared so poorly last week — and was, as prequels go, the sharper and more entertaining of the two. But I guess you just can’t force people to go see the good one when they really want to flock to the lame one.

Elsewhere, “The Three Musketeers” opened fourth with $8.8 million, which should fuel further Twitter rage from star Milla Jovovich, and “Johnny English Reborn” limped into eigth place with $3.8 million, which tells me that most moviegoers still have a shred of self-respect.

So, yay.