Paranormal Activity 5 was on my recent list anticipating the rest of the year’s best upcoming horror films. We hadn’t heard much about it, other than it had been formally announced, at the time of that feature’s publication. But I assumed the reason we’d heard so little about it was to keep the film under wraps and secret.

I hardly expected this news.

For the past couple of years the series has been a Halloween staple, but this year will mark a change in that tradition. On Tuesday, there were whispers throughout the internet that the fifth Paranormal Activity film would be delayed to a place horror films go to die: January.

Now, The Wrap is reporting that this fifth film won’t even be a canon film, but a spin-off. That film will be “Latino-centric” and probably will feature new characters not named Katie Featherston, but with similar poltergeist problems. That film has yet to be titled (Paranormal Activity: Day of the Dead?) but will be directed by PA 2-4 writer, Christopher Landon.

The site is also reporting that PA 5 has yet to develop a satisfactory script and hasn’t even attached a director yet. How ironic that the little indie film that could of yesteryear is now facing dreaded studio development issues and is in a mini-development hell.

So to recap, no Paranormal Activity 5 this October. That’ll most likely have to wait until 2014.