It has already been turned down by the Sundance film festival, and now it appears SXSW has also passed on the Lindsay Lohan erotic thriller The Canyons over what are described as "quality issues".

The Hollywood Reporter quotes an insider at the Austin, Texas festival who said Paul Schrader's film, based on a screenplay by the novelist Bret Easton Ellis, has "an ugliness and a deadness to it". The decision by both festivals – if confirmed – comes as a shock given the prominence of the film-makers: Schrader is the writer of Martin Scorsese classics Taxi Driver and Raging Bull as well as a significant director in his own right. Ellis, while not generally praised as a screenwriter, is the celebrated author of American Psycho and Less Than Zero.

Inevitably, media commentators are blaming Lohan for the issues surrounding the film following an on-set expose by the New York Times that detailed the actor's "difficult" behaviour. She is said to have been fired at one point and only reinstated after begging Schrader for her job back, and allegedly turned up on set three hours late on another occasion after partying all night with Lady Gaga.

Nevertheless, there would also appear to be significant non-Lohan issues with the film. Ellis, Schrader and producer Braxton Pope reportedly fell out over the final cut, and at one point the Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh offered to cut the entire movie over three days after Pope showed him a rough version. "The idea of 72 hours is a joke," Schrader told the Times. "It would take him 72 hours to look at all the footage. And you know what Soderbergh would do if another director offered to cut his film? [Puts up two middle fingers.]"

Meanwhile, Ellis is quoted as saying: "The film is so languorous. It's an hour 30, and it seems like it's three hours long. I saw this as a pranky noirish thriller, but Schrader turned it into, well, a Schrader film."

Also starring porn star James Deen alongside an army of unknowns, The Canyons is described as a contemporary LA noir about the dangers of sexual obsession and ambition, both personally and professionally, among a group of people in their 20s; and how one chance meeting connected to the past unravels all of their lives, resulting in deceit, paranoia, cruel mind games and ultimately violence. As for when the general public will have a chance to see it, your guess is currently as good as ours, but producers are reported to be shopping the film around studios in the hope of finding a buyer.