Horror film, 'Possession,' debuts as No. 1

A late-summer horror tale took possession of the weekend box office as Hollywood quietly wound down a busy season that turned out to be not so busy.

"The Possession" debuted as the No. 1 movie with $21.3 million over the four-day Labor Day weekend, The Associated Press reports. The Lionsgate fright flick stars Kyra Sedgwick and Jeffrey Dean Morgan as parents of a girl possessed by a demon.

It was a typically slow Labor Day weekend, ending a summer that failed to live up to Hollywood's expectations. Studio executives started the season with projections of record business, but revenues dropped 3 percent compared with summer 2011, according to box-office tracker Hollywood.com.