Will Lindsay Lohan’s latest legal troubles hurt the box office for her upcoming horror flick “I Know Who Killed Me,” which will be released by Sony’s (SNE) TriStar Pictures on July 27?

It seems that Ms. Lohan’s relapse does not bode well for the film. She was supposed to appear on “The Tonight Show” on Tuesday night to promote the film but that had to be canceled due to her DUI arrest. Instead, the usually criminally unfunny Rob Schneider did an amusing job making fun of Lohan…in drag no less.

But even if Lohan didn’t have sobriety issues, it’s still hard to imagine her new movie doing all that well. For one, it’s about a woman, played by Lohan, who gets abducted and tortured by a serial killer. And Lohan’s venture into the so-called “torture porn” or “gore-nography” genre of movies is ill-timed.

“Hostel: Part 2″ and “Captivity,” two flicks released this summer by Lionsgate (LGF) about women being brutally tortured were bombs at the box office. The “Hostel” sequel grossed, figuratively and literally, just $17.6 million at the box office, well below the $47.3 million take of its predecessor, while “Captivity” has so far sold only $2.5 million’s worth of tickets.

It appears that moviegoers have finally tired of these types of ultra-sadistic horror movies, favoring instead more psychological fare such as surprise hits “Disturbia” from Viacom’s (VIAB) Paramount and MGM’s “1408.” “Disturbia” has grossed nearly $80 million at the box office while “1408″ is nearing the $70 million mark.

“["I Know Who Killed Me"] has a lot of things working against it. Of course, her problems this week just add to that. A year ago, this seemed like a great idea: Lindsay Lohan in a horror film. But now, it’s going to be a tough sell. Horror films in general have been run into the ground. There are too many and people are just sick of them,”said Gitesh Pandya, editor of BoxOfficeGuru.com.

“Plus, the bulk of her audience is under 17 so the R-rating will hurt the box office. A lot of her fans won’t be able to come out for that. And with her troubles this week, she’s not able to promote the film as much as she should,” he added.

Finally, Lohan has some formidable competition at the box office this week. You may have heard of this cartoon called “The Simpsons”?

Pandya thinks “The Simpsons Movie,” which will be released by News Corp.’s (NWS) Fox, could make $50 million at the box office this weekend.

“The Simpsons will be huge,” he said, adding that Fox has helped raise awareness for the film with wacky promotions, including turning some 7-Eleven stores into Kwik-E-Marts and launching a Web site in conjunction with Burger King (BKC) that lets fans upload photos of themselves so that they can be Simpsonized. Click here to see what I look like as a Springfield resident.

“Fox has done one of the best marketing jobs of the year with this movie,” he said. And it certainly helps that Marge Simpson hasn’t been arrested for DUI lately.