'Sinister' release date gets moved...

SHOCK TILL YOU DROP

February 24, 2012
by Edward Douglas

Finding a release date can be tricky for any horror movie, though one has to figure that October is still the best month for the genre as seen by the success of the "Saw" and "Paranormal Activity" movies and dozens of others, including Marcus Nispel's 2003 The Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake. That's why it's kind of surprising that ERC is reporting Lionsgate has moved their upcoming reboot of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D back three months from its original pre-Halloween release date of October 5 to the first weekend of 2013 with a release on January 4. The ink on that release date change hadn't even dried before Summit jumped on the now-open October 5 as the new release date for Scott (The Exorcism of Emily Rose) Derrickson's found footage movie Sinister starring Ethan Hawke and Vincent D'Onofrio.

Of couse, now that Summit and Lionsgate are essentially the same company, that release date switcheroo probably isn't as "sinister" as we've mae it sound and the newly-merged companies just decided that Sinister could get a nicer boost pre-Halloween (and pre-Paranormal Activity 4) and the first week of January has already seen a bunch of horror hits including The Devil Inside earlier this year, White Noise, and One Missed Call.

The move gives The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D a weekend all too itself whereas in October, it would have taken on Tim Burton's stop motion animated Frankenweenie and the action sequel Taken 2.

This is also good news for Todd Lincoln's long-delayed The Apparition starring Ashley Greene cause now it doesn't have such strong horror competition on August 24.