Hand-Drawn ‘Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ Rotoscoped Feature Announced for 2027
More than five decades after forever changing the landscape of horror cinema, Tobe Hooper’s 1974 masterpiece The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is receiving a stark, handcrafted visual reinvention. Dark Sky Films and Exurbia Films have officially announced that a fully rotoscoped, hand-animated version of the genre-defining classic is currently in production, slated for a wide release in 2027.
In a media landscape increasingly dominated by automated workflows, the filmmakers are making one point unequivocally clear: no artificial intelligence will be used at any stage of production. Every single frame of the feature will be manually traced and illustrated by hand, leveraging one of animation’s rarest and most demanding artistic traditions to present Leatherface and the Sawyer family in an entirely new light.
Led by Linklater Collaborator Paul Beck
Guiding the ambitious project is Animation Director and Art Director Paul Beck, an Austin-based multimedia artist whose work helped redefine modern rotoscoping. Beck previously served as a lead animator on several of Richard Linklater’s most celebrated rotoscoped features, including Waking Life, A Scanner Darkly, and Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood.
“The original Texas Chain Saw Massacre is a masterpiece that changed cinema forever,” Beck said in a statement accompanying the announcement. “Our goal is to honor its legacy by reimagining it through the timeless art of hand-drawn rotoscoping, giving audiences a completely new way to experience a film they thought they already knew.”
Joining Beck is a team of industry veterans boasting decades of combined experience across animation and special effects as Max Peake serves as Lead Animator, Nate Bayless (Apollo 10½, Undone, Tower, BoJack Horseman) oversees special effects animation, and Jeremy Martinez (Undone, Let’s Be Real) serves as Background Artist, crafting the stylized, oppressive sun-drenched environments of rural Texas.
Honoring a Century-Old Craft
Invented by Max Fleischer in 1915, rotoscoping is a technique where animators trace over live-action footage frame-by-frame to capture human movement with uncanny realism. The process helped shape early Disney classics like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Cinderella, as well as high-fantasy animated features like Ralph Bakshi’s The Lord of the Rings, Heavy Metal, and Fire and Ice.
By manually tracing keyframes and compositing individual visual elements, Beck’s team maintains total artistic control over shadow, line, and texture while preserving the visceral, panic-inducing live-action performances of Marilyn Burns, Gunnar Hansen, and Edwin Neal.
First Look Arriving August 18
While the full feature won’t arrive until 2027, fans won’t have to wait long for a glimpse at the art style. Dark Sky Films and Fathom Entertainment will host their annual Texas Chain Saw Day in theaters nationwide on August 18.
In addition to a 4K theatrical screening of the original 1974 film, theatergoers will be treated to an exclusive behind-the-scenes featurette containing the very first exploration footage and a sneak peek at the rotoscoped animation while production remains underway.
