“The Amityville Horror” returned from the dead with a vengeance, with the gory update of the 1970s fright flick taking in $23.3 million to top the weekend box office.

The previous weekend’s no. 1 movie, the African desert adventure “Sahara,” slipped to second place with $13.1 million, lifting its 10-day total to $36.4 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.

“The Amityville Horror” stars Ryan Reynolds and Melissa George as a couple tormented by visions and voices in their new home, the scene of a grisly mass murder a year earlier.

The movie is the latest in a parade of successful horror remakes. With a built-in audience looking for scares and a string of hits such as “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” “The Grudge,” and “Dawn of the Dead,” horror movies have become almost a sure-thing in Hollywood.

Horror movies also typically cost far less than other big studio films, whose average budgets top $60 million. “The Amityville Horror” grossed more than its $19 million budget in just the first weekend.

“The Amityville Horror” received mostly bad reviews, yet the under-25 crowd that makes up the genre’s core audience rarely heeds the critics.

“The only reviews that count are the public’s reviews,” said Erik Lomis, head of distribution for MGM, which released “The Amityville Horror.”