LOS ANGELES, USA (AP) — The Possession occupied the top spot at a nearly comatose

box office.

The fright flick with Kyra Sedgwick and Jeffrey Dean Morgan playing the parents of a girl possessed by a demon earned US$9.5 million in its second outing, the lowest grossing weekend for the box office this year and one of the worst weekends at the box office in a decade. It marked the first time since 2008 that no film managed to crack the US$10 million mark.

The weekend after Labor Day is typically the slowest of the year, but this weekend's grosses were down 20 per cent over last year when Contagion opened in first place with US$22.4 million. Total box office revenues are estimated at US$67 million, which would make this the worst weekend at the box office since the weekend after 9/11 when revenues were US$59.7 million.

"There just wasn't a strong opener," said Paul Dergarabedian, box-office analyst for Hollywood.com.

"We came off a summer that ended with a whimper. There wasn't any momentum. It just comes down to the movies and the marketplace. There's wasn't some extraneous force keeping people out of the theatres. This crop of movies just didn't have that solid draw."